fS 3537 

nn 



!;;i TEDS AND FLOWERS 



A COLLECTION OF 



Sketches of East Tennessee; its Scenery, 
Folk Lore and People 



Br 
W. M. STONE 

AND 

B. CLAY MIDDLETON 




PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHORS 
1917 






\^.<K 



\ 



The Call of the Wild 

EUGENE FIELD 

It seems to me I'd like to go 

Where bells don't ring nor whistles blow. 

Nor clocks don't strike, nor gongs don't sound, 

And I'd have stillness all around — 

Not real stillness, but just the trees.' 

Low whispering, or the hum of bees. 

Or brooks' faint babbling over stones 

In strangely, softly tangled tones. 

Or, maybe the cricket ot katydid. 

Or the songs of birds in I he hedges hid, 

Or just some such sweet sounds as these 

To fill a tired heart with ease. 

If 'tweren't for sight and sound and smell 

I'd like the city pretty well ; 

But when it comes to getting rest, 

1 hke the country lots the best. 

Sometimes it seems to me I must 

Just quit the city's din and dust 

And get out where the sky is blue — 

And, say, how does it seem to you ? 



Page T'wo 




Introduction 




(U' 



'HE writers of the sketches contained in this 
little volume are natives of East Tennessee. 
One was born in the northern and the 
other in the southern portions of East Tennessee. 
The father of one espoused the cause of the 
Confederacy and the father of the other that of 
the Union in the struggles of the late civil war. 
One is an ardent Democrat, the other an uncom- 
promising Republican. Ancestors of each were 
signets of the Declaration of Independence. One 
w. M. STONE jj 3 Presbyterian, the other a Baptist. Both are 

country bred, having each spent the happy time of youth among charming 

scenes of nature and in the society of that noble race of pioneers who, by 

inspired word and. heroic deeds, have glorified the history of the United 

States and put East Tennessee conspicuously on 

the map. On one subject, however, the writers 

were of one heart and mind, viz.; the pleasant 

experiences of a childhood spent in rustic and 

untutored innocence among the mountains and 

valleys of East Tennessee ; and these scenes and 

experiences, after the lapse of years, they at- 
tempt to reflect in the sketches which follow. 

They may appear crude to the reader, yet they 

are gratefully presented as tokens of love to the 

folk-lore of the "good old days" that are no 

more. B. CLAY MIDDLETON 




Remembrance 

Sometimes, when I am weary, out upon my mind's bank 

plate 
Creep slow pictures that were graved there long ago by 

careless fate — 
Hidden deep in Memory's dark-room, they like buried 

Sunbeams wait. 

Strange old pictures, long forgotten — left unrecked of in 

my brain, 
'Till comes Memory with her lantern, and pours some 

Scent, some old refrain. 
Like a liquid spell upon them, and, behold, all's clear 

again. 



Page Three 



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Christmas in the Country 

^ j HE first knowledge we had of Santa Claus, the Christmas holidays 
^ and their contingent fesliviiies, was gained in the home of our nativ- 
ity, the mountams and valleys of dear old East Tennessee, remote 
from any but a hardy and rustic civilization, and a long, long time ago. it 
was there the yule log for us first glowed wiih ruddy hue in the wide old- 
fashioned fireplace and sent a cloud of hospitable smoke roaring up the 
chimney to curl into a thousand blue wreaths of welcome to the belated 
traveler and become a landmark for the nocturnal prowler. The weather 
was clear, crisp and cold. The modest hills and the majestic mountains 
lay white in spotless robes of snow, the flowing skirts of which covered the 
fertile intervening valleys. The murmuring brook cast silvery spray into 
crystals of ice, which clung to reed and bending willow and there played 
hide-and-seek with beams of light which flashed from wintry sun, or twnnkled 
from a star-ht sky. Great pines creaked and moaned in the wind and 
waved their green plumes over the modest holly, whose fruitage blushed 
crimson among its emerald leaves. Up in the sage field, upon the boughs 
of big persimmon trees, tenderly clung waxen clusters of mistletoe, ready to 
be gathered and placed where coy Cupid was wont to make sheep-eyes at 
Miss Sally. Christmas time back in the hills lasted usually until the buried 
black jack and Itmbertwig apples had been eaten, and all the "biled" cider 
consumed. To us this was a hilarious season, but not necessanly a Bachi- 
nalian one, for only a few of the elite of our neighborhood went to town 
and got drunk. The small kids, like us, were just tickled to death to see 
old Santa Claus' big track in the ashes of the fireplace on Christmas morn- 
ing. We were expecting him and had fixed for his coming by hanging up a 
long yarn stocking or placing our old flopped hat in a conspicuous place 
near the fireplace. Usually we got some firecrackers of the smaller size, a 
few nuts, some stick candy, but no toy pistol, for fear that some later day 
we might work up an appetite for canying an Iver- Johnson. Sometimes we 
would get a modest toy, but our boyhood was spent in the days before the 
tin monkey that could cHmb a string had been invented. 

Christmas time was a time for frolics and serenades. The boys would 
get together and go around the neighborhood serenading the folks at night. 
They carried cowbells, triangles, fiddles, banjos, drums and army pistols. 
It was the rule to noiselessly slip up to a home and begin the serenade by 
firing off the old army pistols into the air, then start the racket of the drums, 
bells, triangles, fiddles, etc., as we ran around the house. Usually we were 
soon invited in and limbertwig apples, as fine as you ever socked an eye- 
tooth in, were forthcoming, together with ginger bread and a large cedar 



Page Five 



Christmas in the Country 



bucket of cider, which was just beginning, as the boys used to say, to have 
songs in it. Then we had music sure enough. The fiddler would care- 
fully tune his instrument, which as a rule contained the rattles off of one or 
more rattlesnakes, rosin his bow, and then on the clear night floated the 
dulcet melody of something "quick and devilish." We have seen the great 
artist lay his cheek upon the belly of the violin and draw the bow across 
the cat-gut strings in some wonderful and artistic productions, but to us that 
was an idle effort compared to the achievements of the old-fashioned fiddler 
when he had a quart of hard cider under his belt and warmed up to his 
job. There it was that we heard "The Arkansas Traveler," "Billy in the 
Lowground," "Old Granny Hair," "Sugar in the Gourd," "Sourwood 
Mountain," "Cackling Hen," etc., in all of their rustic sweetness and un- 
tortured charm. Who could resist the mystic spell or keep their cowhide 
boots and brogan shoes from clattering an accompaniment of hilarious joy ? 
Those were the days when the one-gallus fellow came into his own and 
sat down and sipped hard cider from the same gourd v^ath his patrician 
neighbor who carried a bull's-eye watch and had red leather on the top of 
his boots. That was also a day when the red striped stick of peppermint 
candy was a winner with the girls, and a candy kiss wrapped in fringed 
tissue paper and containing a prmted verse of poetry conferred the acme of 
delight. In our youth this was the season when our older brother, who had 
gone to the city to seek his fortune, came back home to display his fine 
clothes and relate the wonderful stories of life in the city ; the time when 
our oldest sister, with her husband and baby, came back to spend a week ; 
the time when we had dances, social gatherings and candy pullings — a time 
to which memory reverts with vivid clearness and pleasant contemplation — 
and, a desire to be "borned again.'' 



A Christmas Sentiment 

/^HRISTMAS is the happiest season of the year, and 1 am glad it has 
m^L the potency of continuing so throughout life. There are pleasures 
which become insipid through repetition, but, thank goodness this is 
not true of Christmas, for each recurring season brmgs its surprises and its 
differing phases of pleasure. It is true, those Christmases of early childhood, 
spent on a plantation with brothers and sisters, little friends and negro play- 
mates, seemed to afford the joy which actually tickled to the bone, but in 
youth we formed stronger friendships and even had sweethearts, and so at 
that period the Christmas season gave license to tell a tender secret the 



Fage Six 



A Christmas Sentiment 



tongue refused to utter. Then it was that I read the Chnstmas stories of 
Dickens and thought by emulating their spirit that I was enjoying the hap- 
piest Christmas of my life. In early manhood I got maiiied, and little 
toddlers just kept commg on mighty regular for a while, and it seemed like 
I loved each one the best, and so when Christmas rolled around and 1 com- 
menced to do the Santa Claus stunt, and saw how happy those children 
were, felt satisfied that 1 was now enjoying the happiest Christmas of my 
hfe. But, bless your soul, almost before I knew it, these children had grown 
up to be men and women, and some of them actually went off and got 
married and set up for themselves, and the funny part of it is now they are 
coming back at Christmas tima to the old home and bringing with them 
a crop of young 'uns that call me "grandpa." Well, when 1 look at these 
little chubby rascals, and see everybody so happy and gay at Christmas 
time, I feel that the limit has been struck. Still, I know one thing — not 
many of us get to be great-grand-daddies, but I am going to try to be one, 
and hope to trot a great-grand child on my knee, and should this happen 
to be at Christmas time, I feel it really would ht the happiest Christmas of 
my life. 



Childhood 

TURN backward, O memory to the hours of childhood that hark to us 
from the sweet and poetic past; backward to the hour when un- 
tutored innocence knelt by the side of a litile trundlebed and lisped 
a childish prayer. Backward to the hours of play beneath the shade of 
maple trees ; to the playhouse fenced off with rocks and decorated and 
carpeted with moss and ferns. Its broken pottery and crude toys and rustic 
furnishings are as fresh in our mind as events of yesterday. Mudpies there 
were that bore the dainty mark of dimpled fingers; and along the silvery 
brook chubby feet left marks in the moistened sand. Those were the 
golden days when the childish mind was as pure as a mciiden's blush and 
as stainless as pinions plucked from the wings of an angel. Those were 
the days when a little sweetheart's smile greeted us each day, and whose 
sparkling eyes peeped at us m pleasure from beneath the crown of a ging- 
ham sunbonnet. Those were the days when out faces were stained with 
berry juice or the crimson of luscious cherries ; when our little pockets were 
the depositories of all our earthly treasures. Those were the days when 
our mothers— God bless them bound wilted plantain leaves to the stone- 
bruise on our heel, or tenderly bound up the stubbed toe. Those were the 
days when we never dreamed it was agciinst the peace and dignity of the 



Pa^e Sfven 



Childhood 



land to crawl through the weeds and exploit a melon patch or claim for 
personal use the choicest fruit of limb or vine. Those were the days when 
we anchored June bugs by the leg with a thread and lassoed lazy lizards 
from the rail fence. Each day seemed a separate age and night brought 
dimpled slumber, from which we were awakened by a mother's kiss. On 
tinted wings the butterfly fled from our approach, but the doodlebug in the 
dry earth and rotted wood beneath the great oak trees was responsive to 
our call. The life of our childhood was to breathe the pure air and inflate 
our lungs with the ozone of every rustling breeze. The sun kissed a bronze 
upon our cheeks, and the ruddy glow of health went leaping through our 
veins. We drank in the perfume of the clover fields, rich with a million 
blooms, and romped in the mow of the old log barn on fragrant new- mown 
hay, and would to God that every little palefaced city-bred child could 
experience the blessed privileges it has been ours to enjoy. 



A Country Visit 

^2L^'**^D'^Y morning, in the early days of autumn, a certain farmer's wife 
^^ with a bundle of huckleberry sprouts tied up in the shape of a broom, 
sweeping the walk that leads from the entrance gate to the front 
porch of the old log residence, and incidentally, "shooing" chickens off the 
lawn. One of the children, teasing a brace of hounds that were trying to 
take a snooze in the bed of flags that Hne the walk, suddenly cries out: "Ma, 
who's them folks down at the ford? Looks to me like that's old Selam 
that man's liding." The good woman looking in the direction indicated by 
the child, and shading her eyes for a more extended vision, exclaims : "Well, 
bless my heart, if it ain't John, and Sally and the baby ! Run down to the 
kitchen, Mary, and tell Aunt Judy that Sally and John are coming, and for 
her to tell Tobias to come here quick." True, the eldest daughter of the 
family had married the son of a neighboring farmer and they were coming 
for a visit to the old home, bringing with them the first grand child born into 
the family, and as they rode up to the old familiar hitching block, the good 
woman enthusiastically greeted them: "Why, hello, John! Howdy Sally! 
Never was so glad to see anybody in all my life. Here Tobe, take those 
horses up to the barn and 'tend 'em. Come in John— kick that trifling 
hound out into the yard. Sally, give me the baby while you take off your 
things. Why, bless your sweet little heait, ganmuzzer's going to steal you, 
yes she is! Bob, run down and fetch a pail of fresh water right quick, and 
Louisa, you go to the spring house and bring up a crock of butter and some 



Page Eight 



A Country Visit 



cream, then go out in the garden and see if you can't cut enough 'sparagus 
for dinner. Andy, call Nero and run down a couple of hens for dinner, 
and see that you get nice ones, too. Susie, honey, go down to the kitchen 
and tell Drucilla to put on a nice clean apron and come up here and mind 
the baby. Where is Bob? Robert! Bless goodness, here he is. Bob, 
Sally and John are here. Now kiss the baby, then go and look for your 
daddy. He's somewhere down on the creek making whistles for the chil- 
dren. Tell him Sally and John are here, and for him to hurry home. 
Sam, drop that fishing pole this minute, you rascal, and see if you can't 
grabble enough new potatoes up in the garden for a mess, for Sally and 
John are here and we've got to have a jiice dinner today. Now, George, 
baby dear, get a basket and gather the eggs, for your sister Sally is here, and 
John, and the little baby, but don't you fall out of the barn loft and hurt my 
little man, for if you did mama would cry. Well, Judy, what is it you 
want?" inquired the lady of the house as the portly queen of the kitchen 
smihngly waddled up to the happy group. "Whatter 1 want, did you say, 
Miss Rachel? I wants to see Miss Sally. Howdy, Miss Sally! Howdy, 
Mr. John. Just told them niggers down dar at the kitchen dat I warn't gwine 
to cook another vittle till 1 saw Miss Sally's baby. Why, you little rascal ! 
Lemme have 'im in my han'. Miss Sally — I ain't gwine to hurt 'im — ain't 
I done raise leben. Why he's jes" the picture of Mr. John. 1 certainly is 
glad you'all come today, for your Aunt Judy's gwine to fix you up a din- 
ner jes' same lak the one you had on yo weddin' day ; I shore is." 



® 



The Country Weekly 

^1 EMPUS fugit! Forty busy, happy, careless years; eventful — yes, 
'-1 and yet, judging from possessions earthly, and contrasted by social 
position, years that have been plain and uninteresting; regular years, 
precise, and as alike as the tracks of a pig in a muddy lane. Would we 
live them over again? Er, aw, um ; well, yes. Forty years ago our edu- 
cation consisted in the ability to read a printed sign, which said: "Boy 
wanted up stairs." As we had no particular use for ourselves at the time, 
it occurred to us tha'; we might be of use to some one else, so we cautiously 
ascended the rickety stairway that indicated the location of that particular 
"up stairs," and soon found ourselves in the sacred precincts of the sanctum 
sanctorum of the moulder of public opinion for the county in which we 
lived and for the country at large. The civil war had not been ended so 
very long before, times were awful'y hard, and there was a lot of other 



Page Nine 



The Country Weekly 



things that were calculated to make us feel humble, and we did; but when 
we surveyed the mysterious quarters from which our imagination had pre- 
pared us to expect splendor and majesty, we really felt justified in boldly 
holding up our head and replying to the querry as to our mission, w:th the 
request: "Mister, don't you want to hire a boy to do nothing?" A broad 
smile slowly illuminated the careworn features of the seedy moulder of public 
opinion as he elevated his spectacles and surveyed our slightly attenuated but 
rugged anatomy, and after a careful scrutiny he allowed that while our per- 
sonal app^irance did not present the most pleasing prospects, yet that if we 
would engage to psrform certain duties, which it took him more than an 
hour to enumerate, he would agree to weekly rob his meager income of two 
whole dollars for the benefit of our entertainment and sustenance. We 
took the job, and say, he certainly did need a boy. Don't know who toted 
the water before we took charge, but the spring was a mile and a quarter 
from the shop and they used three buckets of water a day. The editor 
served in various capacities. Quite frequently he was in leisure and dignity 
rsally the editor, but that was when the county judge and 'Squire Crabtree 
called in to see what the boys were doing at Washington and tell the latest 
joke. He could set type, work the Washington hand press, sweep up the 
shop, make rollers, and in fact he could sub for the devil, when necessary 
— in the shop — but on the street he always wore a long-tailed clawhammer 
coat and a 1 776 tile. He must have been popular, for our congressman 
was up to see him every week during his stay at home, and the president 
of the bank and a Campbellite preacher who almost run the town, dropped 
in to see him almost every day. We soon noticed one thing— the more type 
we could set the greater amount of time he spent in social intercourse. Free 
tickets to everything that was going on in the town were sent to him, and 
also the biggest pumpkin, the largest watermelon and the greatest amount of 
Irish potatoes dug from a single hill. But our editor was equal to all occa- 
sions, for he had learned from the school of experience that "vinegar never 
catches flies." He faithfully tried to give all the news of the town and the 
county as it was related to him. His best subscribers, those who annually 
paid for their paper in cash, always received honorable mention when they 
came to town, while those who niggardly paid in cordwood, turnips, pota- 
toes, limbsrtwig apples or sorghum were treated with silent contempt. He 
never made much money because he was too honest with himself. His 
operating expanses were small. Hostetter's Stomach Bitters, Miss Lydia E. 
Pinkham and "Jones he pays the Freight," were good for the annual rental 
of the print shop, and John Robinson's circus was good for $20 cash a year. 
The biggest thorn in the flesh of the editor was an express agent named 
Fisher, who afterward became a superintendent. Every Thursday there 



Pa^^e Ten 



The Country Weekly 



was a bundle of white print paper came to the office with $3.50 C. O. 
D. charges attached thereunto, and the editor did not always have this 
amount, so while he would argue in a loud tone of voice, and pound 
the table with clenched fist to give force to his argument with the judge, the 
preacher, or the congressman, his tile came off and he rolled his hands in 
humility when the smiling face of that agent shined in the doorway Thursday 
morning. It is true, there are rough places in the journey of a country jour- 
nalist, but down in the inside pocket of his vest and nearest his heart nestled 
the real joy of the journalistic life, the annual pass over the railroad line 
which ran through the town in which he lived. This gave him a chance to 
see what was going on in the adjoining counties and to attend the conven- 
tions. It broadened his vision of life, and gave the strength of conservatism 
to a man who, if left alone, might have developed into a radical trust- 
buster, or an inveterate foe of the bloted bond-holder. The milk of human 
kindness is soothing even to the human editor. As a rule the country editor 
is a good citizen and stands for that which is best for the community in 
which he lives. In the past forty years wonderful changes have been made 
in the manner of producing newspapers, but it was our pleasure recently to 
see the twin brothers of our old shop at No. 2 Main street, Ooltewah, Tenn. 



® 



A Visit to Beersheba Springs 

^ I O the lover of the wild and picturesque in nature the drive from Alte- 
fj/ mont to Beersheba Springs is a charming and ever-changing pano- 
rama of beauty and sublimity. From primeval forests of native 
trees you pass through sandy levels of stately pines ; then down into dark 
ravines where only glimpses of the sun may be obtained. One of these 
gulches is especially grand. In its bed flows the south fork of Collins river, 
spanned by a double arch sandstone bridge of unique construction. 

Beersheba Springs is an earthly paradise, selected and constructed by 
mankind for the purpose of forgetting the vexations and vulgarities of civili- 
zation and the earthliness of ordinary existence. Nobly was the selection 
made, and it is no wonder that Beersheba's fame is undiminished after the 
lapse of a century of pleasureable service to humanity. 

A great painter, through ignorance, might attempt to depict the glowing 
colors of the rainbow, or an ambitious musician a reproduction of the sweet 
unwritten music of nature, but I shall not try to describe the peculiar charms 
of Beersheba Springs. Of the hotel proper the main building is of that 
style of architecture so pleasing to the people of the South at the period of 



Page EU'vcn 



A Visit to Beersheba Springs 



its construction, and it is, after an octogenarian service, in splendid preserva- 
tion. From the front varanda of the hotel a vista of scenic grandure is pre- 
sented which is nowhere excelled. 

As 1 stood on Beersheba's rugged heights and beheld the peaceful valley 
which lay smiling at its base, and the lofty mountams beyond, whose tower- 
ing peaks cast lengthening shadows over a beautiful landscape, my thoughts 
recalled the time when Moses stood on Nebo's lofty brow and viewed a 
promised land, flowing with milk and honey, which personally he was never 
to enjoy, and my sympathy went out to Moses, for 1 knew that joyful greet- 
ings and the fat of the land in accumulated abundance awaited my decent 
into this particular valley. How inspiring to mount those Alpine heights and 
dispute dominion with the eagle, or to descend into some dome-vaulted 
forest and experience that supernatural awe and silence in nature which 
thrills one's soul. In passing through valleys and over mountains in East 
Tennessee the thoughtful traveler is impressed with the princely nobility of 
the jjeople who inhabit this section. Their content, their freedom from re- 
straint and ardent love of nature mark them as natural aristocrats. They 
covet not the material wealth of avaricious tradesman, nor do they note bounds 
that would indicate the extent of individual possession, but to them the great 
out-of-doors is their birthright and spontaneous hospitality the prompting of 
their noble natures. Once wronged they are a dangerous people, but in their 
entertainment of stranger or friend, wherever McGregor sits is head of the 
table. 



The Fullness of the Year 

^1 T is Autumn in Tennessee ! A cloudless turquois sky bends serenely 
•M over a beautiful landscape of variegated hues. Autumn's tinge is on 
the trees and the fields are aflame with a golden glow. Soon the 
swallow will circle high in the sky and fly to where palm trees bedeck golden 
sands and the breath of frost is unknown. The chinquapin winks in the 
opening burr and dropping nuts beat a tattoo on dry leaves. The poke stalk 
bends beneath its load of berries and the jimpson weed's bloom has become 
a thorny burr; the onion stalk has wilted and big sweet potatoes crack a 
fissue in the hill; the luscious butter- bean has filled its hull and the tomato 
vine still yields its globes of scarlet. Red pepper pods are ready to cut, and 
the pumpkins ought to have been gathered a week ago. It is fodder pulling 
time in Tennessee. Yellow jackets buzz around the cider mill and the bung 
has been taken out of the full cask lest it burst from the strain of songs that 
in good cider doth abide. Willowy pear trees along the meadow fence are 



Pafre Tavel-ve 



The Fullness of the Year 



bending with their load of fruit, and the apples in the orchard are juicy, red 
and sweet. There are chestnuts on ths ridge, turnips in the valley and a 
banquet in the persimmon tree for the 'possum every night. Muscadines 
are falling like bullets in the creek, where raccoons hunt for crawfish with a 
pawpaw in each cheek. They are grinding sugar cane down at the river 
ford, and soon there'll be sorghum in every cabin on the creek. Yearling 
calves are resting beneath the beech-nut trees, but the shoats are munching 
acorns or grunting around the garden fence. Forty young guineas, almost 
grown, are hiding in the broom corn patch, and a flo:k of young turkeys out 
in the woods chasing bugs and things —they'll know where home is when we 
get to sheUing corn. Big red-heart watermelons, almost two feet long, sleep- 
ing in the corn rows, all covered up with morning glory vines. Went through 
an old corn field that was speckled with big yellow pumpkins and a parcel 
of partridges flew up so sudden that our gizzard stopped beating. The old 
creek is so clear you can just see the fish playing tag. Young fat rabbits, 
just born thi? spring, playing leap-frog in the sage grass, and the frisky gray 
squirrel is barking in the scaiy-bark tree, and the woodpecker yells at you, 
"Say, bet you can't hit me!" then he goes behind a tree. Black-eyed-Susans 
on both sides of the lane, and the farther you go the prettier they get. 
Hickory leaves are turning rellow, sumach bushes red as a gobblers snoot, 
and the air is so clear you can see ten miles. Promised to go to church next 
Sunday, but say, there are too many things getting ripe. 



The Mission of Music 

^jfTAVING been requested to write a short article on music, the ornament 
TH and first cousin of speech, I have given the subject some thought, and 
in consequence approach the theme with fear and trembling from a 
knowledge of having undertaken to speak of a phase of our existence which 
begins with a mother's lullaby to her sleeping infant and ends with the 
chanted dirge that celebrates the body's consignment to its native element; 
a language so universal that the nations of the earth love and understand its 
theme ; a science whose harmonious sweetness is believed to ascend to the 
celestial throne of grace. Through it the sad heart is relieved and the 
merry one may give vent to its overflow. It is love's most powerful means 
of expressing passion, and by reason of its inspiring strains the warrior is 
driven to deeds of valor and death, the patriot aroused to fanatic enthusi- 
asm and the rustic charmed by its pastoral symphony. Therefore music is 



Page Thirteen 



The Mission of Music 



an interpretation of the soul, and the soul is the only divine component of 
our existence. 

Music is the language of the Supreme One ; before the foundations of 
the world were laid the morning stars sang together for gladness. 

True music originated not in the brain of mortal man. The feeble and 
imperfect sounds produced through the medium of human effort are but the 
vain strivings of man to reproduce those fragments of celestial harmony 
sensed by the ear of inspired composers whose yearning souls have caught 
up a wisp, a thread, or note of the divine music of the spheres. The im- 
mortal symphonies of earth's inspired masters are but the reflection of paeans 
of g'ory that have thrilled a thousand other worlds and wafted in through 
windows of the souls of spiritualized enthusiasts. 



® 



Summer Resorts 

M I O while away a few pleasant moments m the atmosphere and harmony 
f-l of nature has always appeared to us as a luxurious and fitting reward 
for members of the human family, who, through accident of birth or 
environment, are ignorant of what constitutes the really perfect and satisfac- 
tory life. To us there is no sadder spectacle than a daily horoscope of lives 
doomed to the sad fate of town existence. With these thoughts in mind, 
and having a short vacation thrust upon us we spit upon a chip and 
tossed it in the air for a "wet of dry" decision between Mineral Park or 
Lauderback Springs, the latter winning with a display of fragrant tobacco 
juice shining toward the sun. Afterwards we learned that Mineral Park 
was run by a preacher, and was a "dry" springs anyway. Lauderbach 
Springs are located on the top of White Oak mountain, and two miles from 
McDonald Station, on the Southern Railway. If you have never been there 
before you had better ride up in old man Kibler's hack, and we venture that 
you will enjoy this gentle, kind-hearted man's conversation as much as the 
scenic ride up the long red lane, through the woods, along the cornfields, the 
pine thickets, and the apple orchards, to the foot of the steep hill where all 
the men folks have to get out and hump it. The hotel proper is a commo- 
dious house right in the woods, on the top of the mountain; and a hundred 
yards below the hotel, on the rugged side of the mountain, gurgle the life- 
giving waters, three in number — iron, lithia and arsenic — which carry the 
vital sparks of life in their every pellucid drop. There among the trees of a 
primeval forest, where the pines moan and sigh in unison to the touch of 
vibrant winds, where gnarled and twisted oaks for centuries have stood 



Page Fourteen 




Tht Ron J to the Valley 



Summer Resorts 



triumphant o'er the storm, unscathed and unriven by the hghtning's fiery 
bolt; where moss and Htchen have woven beautiful garnishments upon the 
cliffs; listening to the barking of the gray squirrels, the "Bob White" whistle 
of the partridge, the red-headed peckerwood's hammermg upon the top of 
old dead chestnut tree', and the golden pheasant drumming upon the log in 
the hollow below, Lauderbach sprmgs brought to us the gentle suggestion of 
a great philosopher who once said, a "little touch of nature makes the whole 
world akin." No matter how dignified you were when you first arrived, 
whether by inherent nature, or in trying to hide what you really are, you 
soon climb down from your austere perch, throw off your coat and jom in a 
match game'of pitching horseshoes with the boys, while the sisters in Israel 
sit by and applaud the lucky pitcher of a ringer or express their encourage- 
ment to the novice. Pitching horseshoes, the water, the pure mountain air, 
gives one a keen appetite for dinner, and every meal seems to be as good as 
the ones our folks used to cook when the preacher came to our house for 
dinner. There were string beans cooked with good old country bacon, yel- 
low-legged chicken just o'd enough to crow, fresh butter, sliced tomatoes 
and cucumbers served with vinegar made from sweet apples, jelly, honey, 
mashed Irish potatoes with cream chicken gravy, hard boiled eggs, mutton 
right off the pasture, and red-brown baked pone corn bread. Then after 
supper the katydids did not make all the music, for we had a nice piano in 
the parlor, and "Rainbow," "The Maiden's Prayer," and five kinds of 
hymn books. Usually those who could not do a stunt on the piano, or 
sing, had to make a speech. Lauderback is a place where the daily mail 
is held in high esteem; it is a homey place, conducted by plain, honest and 
kind-hearted farmer folks, and we hadn't been there many days before we 
could jump up and crack our heels together three times before we lit ; and 
there is a longing in our heart to go back there again. 



Our Content 

We thirst not for conquest, nor blood-dripping sword. 

But draughts ot clear water from a long-handled gourd. 

For islands and empire we don't care a durn. 

So long as there's buttermilk in the old cedar churn. 

If the weather grows cold, or swings back to hot. 

Then what do we care, so there's beans in the pot. 

We take life as it comes, and look not ahead. 

For we've side meat a plenty and pones of corn bread. 

Away with your auto with its honk, honk, honk! 

We'll ride to our Phyllis on a donkey, donk, donk ! 



Pai^e Sixteen 



A Barnyard Convention 



The Bachman Oak. 

(An appmuithn by W. M. Stone) 

A preacher there was, and he planted a tree — 
An evergreen oak, tall now and fair to see — 
But a slender wand from a far distant land 
When lovingly planted by this minister's hand. 

The lawn of his home proved a fertile sod 
When watched and watered by this man of God. 
But its beauty, size, and the strength of its limb 
Has never kept pace with the growth of him. 



A Barnyard Convention. 

Since the birth of civilization mankind has recognized the wisdom of 
conference for the exchange of ideas and to leatn of the experience of 
others, and also to hear the opinion of such persons as have been prominent 
in human endeavor. Keeping pace with the growth of wisdom and civiliza- 
tion is heard the call, "come, let us reason together." The feast of reason 
and flow of soul has ever seemed good to the intellect brightened by thought 
of the welfare and happiness of companions in the journey of life. If this 
be true with respect to mankind is it unreasonable to suppose that simii»(r 
senlimsnts of mutual interest are not entertained by our friends of tK© ?G»wei- 
order of creation? The sagacity displayed by wild and domestic fowls andi 
animals has demonstrated to close observers that they have a means of com- 
munication. Who has not been impressed with the enthusiasm of a con- 
vention of blackbirds, or provoked at the crow psrched high on the limb of 
a dead tree to cry a warning of approaching danger to the dozen robbers in 
the field ? 

The fowls of the ba-nyard of a certain farm met recently to discuss 
modern problems, which included those of scratching courtesy, the high cost 
of living and equal suffrage. Among the delegates there was no distinction 
as to sex, and besides each was allowed to cackle, cluck, quack, crow or 
gobble, as their nativity and education suggested. 

Col. Bronze Gobbler was chosen as ch2urman, and the small bunch of 
whiskers on his stately breast added much to his dignified appearance. His 
ruddy countenance fairly glowed in the sunlight as he perched upon the top 
of a rail fence and called the convention to order with a few musical and 
appropriate gobbles. 



Middltton and Stone II Page SdJeuteen 



A Barnyard Convention 



The Widow Guinea, who insisted on doing a lot of loud whispering 
back in the audience, allowed that Col. Gobbler's ruddy complexion in a 
large measure accounted for the recent scarcity of corn around the barnyard. 

The Misses White Leghorn, two dainty pullet debutantes, wore beau- 
tiful red combs and were much admired. They added an artistic touch to 
the social life of the occasion. 

Maj. Peacock, one of the most aristocratic and exclusive residents of the 
barnyard, was not present. He had recently met with the misfortune of 
having his tail feathers pulled out by a woman who wanted to make a fly- 
brush, and therefore he felt too humiliated and chagrined to attend and so 
he and Mrs. Peacock remained away. 

But personal appearance did not deter Mr. Gander and his family. 
They had recently had their feathers picked to stuff a pillow, but they were 
present and ready to assert their rights and to vote on all questions. 

There were loud calls for 'Squire Brahma Featherlegs, one of the old- 
est roosters in the community, to address the convention, and after prolonged 
squawks, cackles and floppings of wings, he mounted the rail fence and ad- 
dressed the convention, arousing considerable enthusiasm. 

Mr. Greenhead Drake, backed up by a large delegation of Puddle 
Ducks, wanted to pass a resolution favoring the improvement of all water- 
ways, but was opposed by the suffragette leader and a crowd of drylanders. 

At this period of the meeting Mr. Moss Back arrived with a sack con- 
taining all the delicacies of the season, which he proceeded to throw broad- 
cast among the delegates. While they were eagerly engaged in gobbling up 
the bountiful repast a cheeky Jay Bird lit unbidden into their midst and pro- 
ceeded to help himself, when Mr. Banty rooster gave him a murderous 
spur in the side, which quickly sent Mr. Jay Bird to the topmost bough of 
a nearby tree, where he indulged in language that was not fit to print. 

The selection of officers was the next order of business and provoked 
much discussion. Col. Gobbler thought that the spring season of the year 
was a good time to hold the election, and was supported in his contention 
by 'Squire Featherlegs, who was noted among the flock for his bossism. 

The Widow Guinea, who seemed to be the spokesman for the female 
members, combatted the efforts of the male leaders to hold the election in 
the spring with many sarcastic remarks. "Why," exclaimed Mrs. Guinea, 
"do you want to hold the election in the spring if it is not to take advantage 
of us poor setting hens who- could not be present to cast our votes. What 
justice is there in giving a hen the right to vote if you roosters are going to 
hold an election when she is detained at home setting on thirteen eggs. If 
you are fair and honest just wait until along about June bug time, when all 
hens can be present with their children, and then we could demonstrate to 



Page Eighteen 



A Barnyard Convention 



you noisy and self-appointed lords of creation that we are fowls worthy to 
be taken into account and decidedly opposed to race suicide." 

At this suggestion of a family old lady Dominecker burst into a flood of 
tears, and as soon as she could control her feelings, related to the conven- 
tion with sobs and sighs how her home had been recently broken into and 
all her lusty children, sixteen in number, kidnapped by a bold black man 
with a sack and a lantern "at one fell swoop," she only escaping with her 
life on account of her age. Many of the hens present were moved to tears 
by Mrs. Dominecker's story. 

Her story moved Mr. Shanghai Dunghill to remark that all hens need- 
ed the protection of roosters who did not know the meaning of the word 
fear. He also stated that if he had been present he could have saved the 
family of Mrs. Dominecker, as no longer than a week ago he had whipped 
a suck-egg hound and ran him out of the barnyard. 

While Mr. Dunghill was still speaking a small gray hawk flew over the 
spot where the meeting was being held, causing such a panic among the 
delegates that many were injured in their desperate efforts to seek cover. It 
is needless to say that the scare broke up the convention. 

The next day a small boy pulled Mr. Dunghill out of a wood pile 
where he had been hiding since the scare, his cowardly heart still fluttering 
from sheer fright. 



Country Girls. 

^|N YOUTH we had a playmate named Sally, two years our junior, 
all and whom memory paints as the paragon of her sex. She had danc- 
ing eyes, glowing cheeks, unconfinable hair, bouyant spirits and a 
natural wit, which at all times made of her an agreeable companion. When 
ske laughed, which was often, not only would her eyes, hair and nose seem 
to join in the mirthful expression, but a pair of dimples would persistently 
form in either cheek and you would laugh to see and hear her laugh. Her 
neck was shapely and fair, but at times her hands were brown, and often 
splotched with walnut or berry stain. So stronly marked were personalities 
at such a period of life one fails to note a matter of dress, but at the present 
time, if I ventured an honest guess, the articles of Sallie's personal adornment 
rarely consisted of more than three pieces, exclusive, of course, of a pair of 
shoes and stockings sometimes worn. At about the age of fourteen, while 
floundering in the mysteries of McGuffey's Fourth, she seemed to become 
conscious of the human race being composed of sexes, and from a knowledge 
of that fact relinquished many of the games and sports which had been a 



Page Nineteen 



Country Girls 



former delight ; however, the fire of youth and love of sport would crop 
out on occasion of a well matched foot race or horse back canter down the 
long lane to see who could first reach the old school house. Her educa- 
tion, possibly through incimation, consisted more of a knowlede of nature 
than of books. The nook in the forest where the finest berries grew, the 
tree by the river bank that supported the largest muscadine vine, the old field 
where stood the persimmon tree which bore a royal fruit, the marsh in the 
lowlands where the pawpaws reached perfection, the grove on the ridge 
which showered glistening chestnuts after the appearance of the first frost, 
and the dell on the mountain side where the greatest profusion of honey- 
suckles bloomed and perfumed the air, were an open book to her. At that 
period I thought her pretty and smart, but m these latter days of "looking 
back" I find her beauty, wit and purity to grow, and form the theme and 
vision of dreamy moments from which one unconsciously awakens with a 
smiling face. 



Trimmed Bonnets. 

-•SEEING through inclination and environment of a religious tempera- 
llffl ment, we strolled into a church last Sunday, and as we sat upon a 
back seat which was hedged off from the forum by a wilderness of 
millinery we threw off our usual meekness of the publican and dared to lift 
up our brazen faces and look around. If we had not heard the voice of the 
preacher, the solemn echo of an organ's tone, the metallic shriek of the fo- 
prano, or saw deacons as they passed our way with the collection plate, we 
might have imagined we were in some floral garden, horticultural exhibition 
or fancy poultry show, so successfully had the cunning hand of genius wrough 
deceptions in flowers, fruits and feathers. The harvest fields, where billowy 
ripening grain, caressed by summer zephyrs and kissed by the sun's genial 
warmth, had furnished straw for shapes which ranged from the family wash- 
tub to the shell of a 200-pound turtle, and which sat gently tipped upon an 
arrangement of hair under which the most scientific phrenologist would have 
been puzzled to find the bump of wisdom. We saw there hats decorated with 
limbs of the June apple tree whose fruit was velvet without and cotton within. 
To one bewitching bonnet clung a cluster of Scuppernong grapes made of 
wax and garnished with paper fig leaves. Wild and red rambler roses trailed 
for a yard or two over the brim of a "merry widow," and a good sized nub- 
bin of sugar corn with the shuck partly removed modestly peeped from be- 
neath a sheaf of spring oats on one of the latest styles. A stuffed pigeon, 
without further ornament, roosted upon another. An ostrich plume from the 



P^,e;e Tiveuty 



Trimmed Bonnets 



desert of Africa or the plains of Asia waved from another, and the wing o 
a banty rooster flaunted a haughty defiance to the tail feathers of the Ameri- 
can eagle in another. Goldenrod of the meadows nestled close to lillies-of- 
the-valley and the scarlet poppy blushed beside the dandelion in the deco- 
ration of others. Entwined were the apricot and quince on one, while mu- 
rillo cherries and wild goose plums were bound in clusters and elberta peaches 
and Keifer pears were locked with twisted cords in still another. It was all 
mteresting to us as a study of art, and we are going again next Sunday, but 
in all this diversified collection we failed to notice any calico potatoes, ging- 
ham watermelons, flannel squashes or jeans pumpkins, and therefore, being a 
little old-fashioned in our ideas, we would remind Mile, le Modibte that there 
is yet much to be expected from her ingenious mind and cunning hand. 



Spring's Approach. 

The mating birds are in a twitter ; 
The laying hen has become a sitter ; 
The summer girl is in a titter. 
For John has swore to wed or quit'er. 

The honey bee is on the hum ; 
The old wool shirt is on the bum. 
Why does the coal man look so glum ? 
Old man winter, you are goin' some ! 



The Country Store. 

On the main county road, and near a grove of giant oak trees, through 
which flowed a shallow stream of pure and clear mountain spring water, 
was located a country store — our country store. The mission of this store 
was to furnish the requirements of a farming neighborhood that could neith- 
er be raised on the farm or made at home, and its circle of usefulness em- 
braced a radius of ten miles. Incidentally the proprietor of this store was 
also the postmaster for the same community. The postoffice proper was a 
subdivided cracker box nailed up against the wall back of the counter and 
near the front of the store. The quantity of the mail received and for- 
warded was small, but its quality was such that letters received by any 
neighbor from kindred or friends at a distance were circulated until their 
contents were entirely absorbed by curious and interested friends. Mail 



Page T'-Mcnty-One 



The Country Store 



was received only twice a week and the time of its arrival was very irreg- 
ular, depending largely on the condition of the roads and the ability of the 
"star route plug" to ford the creeks, This fact was very convenient for 
some of the boys of the neighborhood, who, under the pretext of looking for 
mail, would gather back of the store under the inviting shade of the oaks 
when the mercury was sizzling around the hundred mark and pitch horse- 
shoes until the arrival of the mail. Then, if by chance, a letter did arrive 
from Pete or Tom, who had gone out west the previous spring, it was read 
out loud on the spot, and its contents were the neighborhood subject of dis- 
cussion for many days. 

The store room proper was a long and narrow one- story building with 
a large open fire place in the rear. In the shade of the trees back of the 
store were the hitching posts where the horses stood impatiently stamping 
the earth to rid themselves of flies, and old Fannie whinnied for her strayed 
mule colt. At the front was a mounting block for the convenience of the 
women folks. Usually an assortment of lazy dogs slept on the ground back 
of the store, and one ot more large freshly-wallowed sows grunted around 
among the trash of the premises. 

Early in life it was our fortune to be permitted to make occasional trips 
to this store for mail and small home requirements, and we distinctly recol- 
lect that there was a peculiar, pleasant and pungent odor to the store, but 
whether it was that of coffee and brown sugar, the cotton goods, leather, 
hardware, or small assortment of drugs which predominated, we could never 
tell. The rear end of the store room was given over exclusively to the use 
of the stores patrons and friends as a loafing place, and during the winter 
season the crowd of loafers would perch themselves upon the heads of nail 
kegs and upon the counter near the open fireplace and discuss various topics 
of interest ranging from horse swapping to the vicarious atonement. 

Some of the liveliest theological discussions to which we have listened 
took place in that store. The old-fashioned country citizen does not rely 
upon men and schools for an interpretation of the Scriptures, but goes straight 
to the book itself. The commentaries of Adam Clark and Matthew Henry 
might be of use to the educated preacher, but these philosophers quoted 
from the Bible literally, and drew their own conclusions. Almost daily 
great theological questions were brought up, thrashed out, but never settled. 

One of the first mysteries of life that kept us awake at night was the 
question of how in thunder that storekeeper knew the price of every little 
thing in that store. 

In those days it was very rare that a family paid their store bill offener 
than twice a year, and for the reason that we saw farmers come in and 
select what they wanted and depart without a monetary exchange or promise 



Page Tiuenty-Tivo 



The Country Store 



to pay — in fact, followed to the door by the storekeeper with such sugges- 
tions as : "Now, John, you're sure you got all the nails you'll need?" — it 
was for a long time we thought he simply ran the store because he did not 
want to work on a farm, and could get all the candy and cheese and 
crackers he wanted to eat. 

Our remembrance of this country store is pleasant, and our wish is that 
it may remain vivid until that time comes in life which daily came to that 
kind and honest old merchant : "Well, boys, 1 reckon it's about time to put 
up the shutters." 



The Old Blue Hen's Brood. 

We love to hear the old hen cluck to fuzzy little brood. 
And sing to them her chicken songs in happy sort of mood. 

And laugh and cackle in her glee 

To see her children romping free. 
Love to see the old hen squat beneath the rose tree red, 
With little chicks beneath her wing, snug as babies in a bed 

And dream as only chickens dream. 

Of bugs that buzz and hawks that scream. 
We love to see the old hen flog prowling cat or wand'ring dog. 
For instinct makes her fight for what she deems is just and right. 

We love to see the old hen keep one eye toward the sky. 
Watching the blue-tailed hawk that flies so swift and high. 

And when she gives the wild alarm 

Her little chickens hide from harm. 
When feathers grow upon their wings, and also on their tail. 
Then mother hen gives them leave to roost upon a rail. 

And when they are old enough to crow. 

Into pot or skillet they are very apt to go. 



The Old-Fashioned Home. 

^yrO SKETCH the old-fashioned country home and attempt to give a 
\^ glimpse of its substantial pleasures and beauty "fodder pulling time" 
has been selected as the season of its greatest charm. It is then the 
fruitage of the summer toil is being gathered and the plow-boy has forgotten 
the gravels that found lodgment in his brogan shoes. It is then the corn 
blades assume an autumnaj tinge and the pumpkin a yellow hue ; when 
cuckle burrs, Spanish needles and beggar lice are ripe and golden rod em- 



Page Twenty-Three 



The Old-Fashioned Home 



broiders the meadow into a mosaic of beauty. Such things as these are the 
fitting environment of the old-fashioned home. Now for a gHmpse of the 
old home itself. Simple and rustic in appearance, with wide porches, spa- 
cious rooms and open fireplace — the furniture primitive and substantial. In 
the kitchen fireplace there is a swinging iron potrack, or crane, upon which 
to hang pot or kettle. A large three-cornered cupboard stands in the cor- 
ner of the dining room and a table sufficiently long that there was no waiting 
for turns. The necessary cooking utensils, such as Dutch ovens, bakers, 
pots, skillets, teakettles, coffee pots and pattie pans, were in the kitchen. 
With these utensils and vegetables fresh from the garden, meat from the 
smoke house and milk and butter from the spring house, a dinner could be 
prepared fit for the delectation of a kmg. The yellow-legged chickens were 
fned in fresh butter and a pot of string beans were not considered worth 
eating unless cooked with a pound of bacon. The pies contained fresh juicy 
fruit and were sweetened with honey culled from a thou-;and flowers. 

In the shelter of the back porch was always to be found several strings 
of red pepper pods which were used to give pungency to soups ; garden sage 
to flavor sausage, and the medicinal herbs, such as boneset for colds, catnip, 
tansy, rue and gentian, specifics for various purposes, and in the closet unde 
lock and key, a jug of apple brandy, innocent of everything except age. 

Instead of springs and mattresses the beds were made of large ticks filled 
with goose feathers, and upon these were spread immaculate sheets, counter- 
panes and quilts that were a matron's pride, and rest, gentle repose and 
sweet dreams were the usual result of a "turn in." 

The old-fashioned home was a home of happmess and contentment. 
Who that has ever looked upon it can forget its sweet sympathy ? Could 
forget the fragrant honey-suckle bower or ihe purple Hlac flower ; the walk 
fringed with boxwood that led up to the house; the old-fashioned roses, the 
hollyhocks, dahlias, cockscomb, batchelor's buttons, peonias, asters, bleeding 
heart, blue flags and white hyacinths which at some period of the year were 
kissed by the dew or caressed by the sun. 

The summer nights, with their peaceful shadows, gave transcendent 
charm and resplendent freshness to the blue and purple morning glories that 
twined above the kitchen door. 

At morning the cat bird, red bird, the blue jay and the mocking bird 
mingled their dulcet melody in songs of gladness. 

At evening the setting sun wrought wonders on the western horizon, 
tinting the blue mountain peaks with gold and transforming the clouds that 
float before its glorious face into islands of fire and continents of opal. 

Night brought out a million twinkling stars which shimmered along the 
milky way and caused the heavens to sparkle like the diadem of an oriental 



Pa}ie Tiventy-l'aitr 



The Old-Fashioned Home 



prince. Then it was the old toad frog left his retreat beneath the burdock 
leaves, the tree frog croaked its chorus in the swamp, the cricket chirped 
in the chimney corner, the katydid made music "petulant shrill" among the 
branches of the apple trees, the whippoorwill sang its weird song in the 
cedar thicket, and on a distant knob the moping owl hooted its dismal com- 
plaint to the silver moon. 

Surrounded by such scenes it is no small wonder that the old-fashioned 
home has nurtured into being the brain, bone and sinew of a great republic, 
and that its influence is an inspiration for noble thought, eloquence, and for 
a high type of patriotic citizenship. 



Rural Correspondence. 

Brown's Chapel, Tenn., Nov. 15, 1906. 

OU R oldest inhabitant, Mr. Ezekiel Brown, sciid this was the latest fall 
he had seen since he helped the government move the Cherokee 
Indians to Arkansas. 

Jacob Brown has a nice patch of strawberries which are blooming most 
prolificly for a second crop, but the darned chickens are eating up the small 
green fruit. 

The June apple trees in Aaron Brown's old orchard all bloomed las' 
August and now the delicate little fruit is turning red and is quite edible. 

Eph Brown killed four fine shoats last Thursday, which he had fattened 
on mast for the past month, but the weather turning so warm he was com- 
pelled to sell them m Chattanooga. But maybe the chitlings wasn't fine. 

' Squire Adam Brown has a row of cherry trees that are putting forth 
their blossoms 'till they look like a bouquet. 

Mrs. Amanda Brown, who keeps the postoflice, says since the town peo- 
ple went home there isn't enough stuff comes up to the postoflice to keep her 
in reading. 

The people up here call Mr. Josh Brown the "cross-tie king." This is 
osjh's third year in the business and he knows the woods by heart. 

Last Wednesday Mrs. Hannah Brown surprised some of her friends 
who were visiting at their home with a mess of dandelion greens. It was 
quite a treat at this season. 

Henry Brown is still killing rabbits. Expect that some of the folks down 
in Chattanooga will sprout a fur if they eat all the rabbits Hen sends down 
there. 

Mose Brown's two boys. Bill and John, caught two 'possums in one 



Page T-Meuty-Five 



Rural Correspondence 



night lately with their old faithful dog, Gip. Guess there must be some fine 
eating at Mose's now. 

Miss Sallie Brown has mvited all the girls that belong to the Bethel Bap- 
tist church to a quilting which she will give next Wednesday afternoon at 
her home. Some of the boys are begging Miss Sallie to turn it into a dance 
after supper, but she hasn't promised yet. 

Mr. Abner Brown's two nephews, Paul and Silas, are down in Chatta- 
nooga selling mistletoe and holly. Uncle Ab said those boys would get rich if 
there was about two Christmas' a year. 

George Brown, our road commissioner, had the boys out two days last 
week working on the valley road. That's right boys, pay your taxes. 

Well, Chrismas will soon be here, and I hope you all will get your stock- 

ings full. W. M. STONE. 



June, Boyhood and Dogs. 

^■rHERE never comes a June that does not bring its train of pleasant 
\l/ memories of other days ; the innocent hours of childhood ; the joyous 
time of youth. We do not know why June especially should recall 
those days, now halcyon through the lapse of years, unless it seems the 
ideal month ; the month m which to remain indoors would seem a sacrifice 
and to even think of business a sacrilege. Most rare, tranquil and transcendent 
June — month of the rose and bride ; warm with the flush of a summer sun; 
blue skies bending serene like a mighty turquoise canopy, frescoed with fleet- 
ing wisps of billowy clouds ; bird music floating from treetops in the sweet 
cadence of harmonious symphony ; beauteous in the benediction of flowers 
flung far and wide through forest and field. Fragrant is the atmosphere 
where falling sunlight filters through the honeysuckle bower ; resplendent on 
the mountain side where rhododendron tosses kisses to the modest violet of 
the valley. Happy in June is the Bob White partridge that whistles to its 
mate down where the clover is knee deep in a flood of white and red. 

Just why we wore little dresses the first three years of our existence we 
could never understand, for we were boys all right, and we knew that we 
werp. One of our first impressions was what a great and beautiful world 
we had to live and play in — then it was only the grounds which surrounded 
our home. Later the kitchen garden revealed its wealth of beauty and 
treasure to our ravished vision. How grand to virgin eye is nature resplen- 
dant m color : to uncloyed taste is fruit and herb in season ; to sense of 
smell is perfume of flowers or scent of pungent weed ; to sensitive ear is the 
soft, sweet music of awakened nature ? 



Pai^e Tiventy-Six 



June, Boyhood and Dogs 



As we grew older our range extended to the spring branch, occasionally 
even to the margin of the big woods, with its deep, quiet shade and mystery. 
We early learned to know many" things of nature — birds, bugs, the bee and 
cJI hopping and creeping things. For a long time it seemed the world had 
been created for our pleasure, and how proud we felt when first we put on 
pants and our mother called us her "little man" — daddy, he always called 
us "young fellow." Each day seemed a separate age, and night brought to 
us sweet and refreshing slumber, distuibed only by such visions as caused us 
to laugh in our sleep, and be awakened by a watchful mother's kiss. When 
at morn the sun peeped over the eastern mountains and lit the valley with a 
radiant glow of light and we sternly summoned to arise, it was more the 
aroma of sizzling ham than a sense of duty that brought a speedy compli- 
ance. Like all boys we loved sweet things, and if not watched, would eat 
our pie first. Our parents were kind enough to make our first duties appear 
like it was all play. We went after the cows every evening, carried in 
firewood, and when the folks were planting corn we could drop two pump- 
kin seed in every other hill of every other row. We helped to feed the 
chickens and looked after the young turkeys — the guineas always looked out 
for themselves. We also helped pick the geese and to shear the sheep, and 
with the assistance of our dog kept the pigs out of the garden. We loved 
to go to school on account of the companionship we found there : it was a 
long time we thought education was a useless thing. We went to Sunday- 
school because we had to. As naturalists we had old John Burroughs and 
Audubon skinned a block. We knew why crawfish swam backward ; why 
coons looked up to the sky as they lifted a rock in the creek with one hand 
and felt under it for a crawfish with the other. We knew that the thrush 
and quail built their nests on the ground whilst the sparrow and fussy little 
wren used the barn and stable for the same purpose. We have climbed 
the tallest trees and braved thickest hawthorns to look down into a nest of 
young birds just to see them close their eyes and open wide their big yellow 
mouths. We knew the buzzard hatched its babies in an old stump and that 
they were white when young and looked like young ducks. We liked wal- 
nuts, hickory nuts, chestnuts, chincquepins, pawpaws, wild grapes, musca- 
dines and blackberries, and took a delight in keeping the family supplied 
with these delicacies. As a rule we weie honest and lived up to the golden 
rule, but there were times when you might have seen the rag weeds shaking 
when the air was perfectly still, but it was seldom you ever saw a little tow 
head bob up so that any one could see it, for we realized that it took dis- 
cretion to get the best watermelons that were grown in the neighborhood. 

It was our luck and pleasure to have had brothers and sisters, but 
it never seemed to us that they matched up to our first dog. He was not 



Page TiL'f//ly-Se-ve/i 



June, Boyhood and Do<js 



exactly a thing of beauty, but nothing in this world could have been more 
faithful. We did not speak the same language, yet he seemed to understand 
every word we said and replied with his beautiful eyes. We were not afraid 
to plunge into the dark woods if he was along. When we returned from 
school he would watch for our coming in a lane a mile from home and meet 
us with the greatest manifestations of joy. He lived a long time, but finally 
succumbed to the fate of all flesh, then we took his body down to a little 
knoll in the meadow, close to the marsh reeds and yellow lillies, and in the 
shadow of a big hay mow laid his body down, and in winter the robbins 
wander near the spot and in summer clover of a peculiar richness blossoms 
above that lowly grave. We know not whether there are dogs in heaven, 
but John, the revelator, from far off Patmos, saw white horses there. 



The Ills of Childhood. 

The ills of childhood we have had 

Like all other children, good and bad. 

The cohc cramps have give us trouble. 

And oftimes bent us almost double. 

The whooping cough and chickenpox 

Have brought to us their share of knocks. 

And that old ailment called the mumps 

Swelled our jaws with mighty humps. 

Then came the phthisic, and the croup. 

To make us wheeze, cough and whoop. 

Yet these not all that plagued our lives. 

For there was rash, ihe itch, and hives. 

And aches and pains that made us feel 

The smallness of the bruises on our heel. 

Then to the list of our earthly woes 

We could add cracks beneath the toes. 

Or augment the list of youthful ills 

With medicated lea and home-made pills. 

Draughts of boneset, thyme and rue 

They drenched us with, and your did you. 

They consulted not our childish will 

When grandma prescribed a blue mass pill. 

We gulped the mess when they tickeled our throat- 

( Guess you've been in the same old boat). 

As a rule the draught worked out well 

Though at the time it seemed to give us fits. 

So down the lane clear marked by fate. 

We arrived at last to man's estate. 



Page T'wenty- Eight 



Country Courtships 




Country Courtships. 

H^HE celebration of a golden wedding anniversary is 
an occasion that comes to but few of us, and Uncle 
George and Aunt Rebecca had intended to enjoy 
the felicity of the notable event quietly and alone, 
but the secret having leaked out, a bunch of nieces 
and nephews and also a sprinkling of grand nieces 
and nephews hiked back to the old homestead — 
that sacred spot of youthful pleasures and pleasant memories 
'^ — to express to the old couple their good wishes and their 
pride in an ancestry that had come down hale, jovial and loving to such an 
anniversary. And, by the way, we had an awfully jolly good time. 

There were four of Uncle George's girls there and two of Aunt Becky's 
boys — one of her boys is living out in Missouri and another in Texas. You 
see, it's this way: Uncle George always claimed the girls, and Aunt Becky 
she didn't seem to know she had a husband, or any girls, but was always 
talking about "my boys." We had a big dinner that was sort of a cross 
between a picnic and a barbecue, and in the afternoon we went around and 
visited all the dear old scenes and landmarks about the farm, and after sup- 
per it took two circles around the big open fireplace to accommodate the 
crowd. Then there was much talk and lots of laughing and joking until we 
got Uncle George to promise to tell us how he and Aunt Becky came to 
get married. He then lit his pipe, blushed a little bit, and winking at Aunt 
Becky, said : 

"1 suppose that courting and marrying has been going on ever since the 
days of old Father Adam, and they all may have had a mighty lot of ways 
of going about it, but all I know is that things like that are not carried on now 
days like they used to be when us older fellows went courting. Then the 
gals all came to meeting with their ma or pa, and all the wimmen folks set 
on one side of the aisle, and the men folks on the other. V/e never wrote 
any notes; when we wanted to gallant a gal home from night meeting or the 
singing school, a whole gang of us boys would hang around the door, and as 
they come out we asked 'em straight out if we could see them home. Some 
of us got to go and then some didn't. When a fellow failed they called 
it getting "kicked." Fer instance, if John had tried and didn't get to take 
Sallie home from church Sunday night the news was spread all over the 
settlement next day that Sallie had "kicked" him. Then, lordy, how the 
old married women folks would allow 'what a fool Sally was, bekase John 
was one of the hardest working boys in the settlement ; that he had a good 
corn crop and owned two cows, one of which would be fresh this fall, and 



Page T-iuenty-Nhif 



Country Courtships 



a good mare and a mule colt that could kick your hat off.' But gals ain't 
got much sense nohow when it comes to setting their caps for a feller, be- 
cause if they did have I guess your Aunt Becky would not have taken me 
for the capital prize. You youngsters ought to have seed me a racking out 
of a Sunday morning on the old plow horse and leading another one with 
my mother's plush-seated side-saddle on, going after my gal to take her to 
camp meeting. I may ferget some things sometimes, but I'll never fergel 
how 1 used to lead the horse up to the 'upin' block for Becky Ann to 
mount, and how I used to put her little foot safely into the stirrup. When 
we went to camp meeting 1 always put a pair of martingales on the old plow 
horse to make it look like he was so powerfully gay that I had to take extra 
precaution with him in order to make him safe to ride. 1 also look a new 
salt sack, washed white and clean, and put ten big ears of shucked corn in 
each end of it and tied it onto the saddle to feed the horses me and Becky 
rode on at noon. And the pockets of my coat fairly bulged with big yaller 
sheep-nosed apples that 1 had hid in the grass for a week to meller for me 
and Becky to eat on the way to the meeting. Of course we expected to 
eat dinner with Becky's Uncle Aaron, as we heard that he was going to kill 
a fat sheep for the camp meeting and would have dmner on the grounds. 
Children, days like them you don't soon ferget. And then, when 1 went to 
see Becky Ann it warn't what the boys nowadays calls a call— just about 
an hour of a Sunday afternoon — but I went to set up with her, and most 
always staid until the chickens crowed for day, and I didn t get a bit sleepy. 
I don't see how young folks ever get tied up now days when they just court 
by making calls. I tell you I believe in the good old-fashioned way of set- 
ting up with 'em and looking into the glowmg embers of the fire and listen- 
ing to the weird and mournful chirp of the crickets. And then, long t'wards 
midnight somehow or other it kinder makes the old-fashioned split bottom 
chairs gravitate towards each other while the taters are roasting in the ashes. 
Of course there aint much said fur fear of waking up the old folks, who 
slept in the same room, but sometimes actions speak louder than words when 
a feller is in love and his heart doing stunts. 1 hear the young folks nowa- 
days speak about holding hands. 1 reckon they didn't hold hands anything 
like me and Becky Ann did when we was courting. I would just hold her 
little dimpled hand and look -".t the gutta percha rings on her fingers until I 
wanted to lean right over and whisper in her ear words too sweet and low 
for even the old folks to hear : "Becky Ann, you are the sweetest girl 1 ever 
saw," and 1 did, and Becky she grinned sweetly and said: "Do you mean 
it ?" and right then 1 felt that I had my right arm around all the treasures 
of this earth, and if the sound of smacking lips waked the old folks up they 
never let on, bekase 1 guess they knew they had been young folks once 



Pai^e Thirty 



Country Courtships 



themselves. Never shall the vision of the courtship days of me and Becky 
Ann pass out of my remembrance so long as life shall last, and I sometimes 
wonder if we will forget it then, or if me and Becky won't still recollect it 
when we join the throng which John saw from far off Patmos — those who 
had come up through great trials and tribulations triumphant and redeemed. 



New Spring Song. 

^|N THE SPRINGTIME when the nights grew warm and still 
J|J We used to sit on the porch and listen to the whip-poor-will sing. 

And watch the fire flies play hide and seek in darkness deep with 
gloom 
Ere they rested in the apple trees and drank nectar from each bloom ; 
While around the fire-place jambs, and on the limestone rocks of the kitchen 

hearth 
Gray crickets chirped in gladness the sweet, qUciint notes of a song of mirth. 

And down amongst the rushes of a cattail bog 

We heard the deep bass voice of a love-sick frog. 

And a full moon beamed with a very merry face 

From its azure depths in far-off space — 

And fairy castles mounted high 

As if to greet the star-lit sky. 

We mused in fancy o'er visions fair 

As we Hngered long in the warm night air. 

But the rich perfume of the lilac and trailing rose 

With their fragrant charm made us nod and doze. 
Until our daddy woke us up, and saud : 
"Hey, Bill! and you, B.Clay, get right up and go to bed." 



Pertinent Queries. 

What has become of the men who always wore their britches tucked 
into the top of their boots. 

The old gentlemen who wore la'ge gray shawls and always carried a 
heavy hickory cane. 

The men who after meals carefully picked their teeth with the big blade 
of a barlow knife. 

The church member who used to punctuate the prayer of the preacher 
with loud and frequent "amens." 



Page Thirty-Oil c 



Pertinent Queries 



The men who wore patches on each knee of their pants as though they 
had spent much time in devotion. 

The red-headed men who dyed their mustache and goatee a jet black 
and whose natural color was a peckerwood red. 

The men who could locate underground streams of water and point out 
the place to dig a well with a forked peachtree sprout. 

The men who wore fancy vests made from the hide of a spotted bull 
calf tanned with the hair on. 

The men who used their saucer in which to cool coffee and thus made 
a series of brown rings on the table cloth. 

The men who sold lightning rods and county rigths for the manufacture 
of patent churns. 

The peddler who used to sell Irish poplin dress patterns and pleated 
shirt bosoms. 

The agent who used to canvas for that splendidly illustrated book, en- 
titled "Every Man His Own Doctor," and which contained "inside" infor- 
mation that was eagerly read by all members of the family. 



Pa^e Thirty-Tivo 



Spring in Tennessee 



Spring in Tennessee. 

<^HIS IS THE SEASON of the year when the trailing arbutus offers 
^•^ the first sip of honey to the bee and the first fragrance to the breeze ; 
when the yellow jonquil blossoms here and there beside the walk ; when 
the crocus and dandelion flash up from the tender green sod of the lawn, 
and I he purple violet adds a touch of beauty to the wooded dell and mossy 
bank of the spring branch. The weeping willow, whose drooping branches 
have long swung bare in the chilling blasts of winter, is the first of 
the deciduous trees to put forth its leaves, followed quickly by the 
stately poplar. The maples of the flatwoods along the creek are 
red with bloom, and the dogwood bushes speckle the knobs with 
white. Pink azalians flaunt their pungent perfume to the hollcws 
where the sweet shrub blooms along with such lowly companions as 
ginseng, snake root, gentine, wintergreen, spignet. May apple, golden 
seal and other plants of medicinal value. Plum, pear, cherry and 
peach, closely followed by apple blossoms, make the old orchard a 
place of rare and transcendent beauty, rich with the fragrance of 
sweet perfume wafted upon every passing breeze. The white oak, in 
the big woods, tardily puts forth its vernal robes, and the progress is 
closely waclhed by the farmer, for they who turn to nature for 
knowledge and to the almanacs for wisdom, say that when the wMte 
oak leaves become as large as squirrel ears it is time to plant corn; the 
big snowball bush is also a safe guide for the same purpose. By and 
by the side of mountains and deep glens become glorious in royal robes 
of flowers that dip and nod from the laurel and rhododendron. 
♦ * * 
This is the season of the year when the days become longer and 
the seven stars at evening creep nearer the twilight zone of the 
earth and sky. The season when the folks back in the hills take 
up the seed sweet potatoes and bed them out so the sprouts might 
come up early for the coming crop. Tomato seed sown in a 
small box filled with woods dirt and placed near the kitchen 
stove for forced germination are up. The hens have been set 
on thirteen eggs each — some at the barn, some in boxes nailed to 
the sunny side of the smokehouse, and one old Dominecker who 
is exclusive in her habits, in a wooden bucket in the ash hopper. 
The old gray goose has selected a nest beneath the trough in the 
cow stall, and the turkey hen sits in a hollow stump at the back 
of the orchard, but if you can find the guinea hen's nest you are 
a good 'un. The old muley cow has left the big loitering straw- 
stack where she has lingered all winter to browse among the 
sassafras sprouts and persimmon bushes. The gray squirrel ven- 
tures far out to the tip of the branches of tall trees for lender buds 
and barks in saucy glee. The gentle dove is cooing lo its mate in ihe 
bare branches of the trees, and the whippoorwill has broken the 
silence of the everlasting hills with its shrill and weird melody. The 

_MiddUton aad Stone— III Pa^c Thirty-Three 



Spring in Tennessee 



little brown wren is building its nest upon the rafters of the wood- 
shed, and the catbird has selected an ancient apple tree for lis sum- 
mer activities. The swallow comes flying from the south, where it 
has spent the winter, to nest again in Tennessee — the chimney sweep 
in the old Jimeslone chimney, the barn swallow in the lop of the 
barn and the martin in the box ck gourd at the top of a tall pole in 
the garden. The gentle-voiced robin and the noisy blackbird have 
made their annual visit, and departed for a more northern latitude. 
Warm April days also awaken the frogs from their torpid sleep in 
the builrush swamp, and they rejoice in a chorus of many voice* at 
sunset. 

This is the season of the year when a person who has subsisted 
all winter on a diet of meat and dry solid food naturally hankers after 
a mess of wild greens. There is not a word of disparagement to be 
said about turnip tops as greens, but early in the spring, when the 
vernal showers have kissed the old Mother Earlh with moisture and a 
balmy ozone floats gently on every breeze that stirs the circumambient 
air, and the fructifying forces of earlh, caressed by smiles of sunshine, 
cause plant life to burst the prison bars of its winter charnel house 
and peep forth in beauty and freshness — then it is time to go out and 
pick a pot of mixed greens. Take a peck, or better, a half-bushel 
basket, if you are providing for an old-fashioned family, and a case- 
knife with a broken handle, and go out to any old meadow where you 
may find a profusion of toothsome and succulent pfants such as narrow 
dock, dandelion, wild mustard, poke shoots, speckled dick, plantin and 
other varieties of the vegetable kingdom that are delicious when 
properly brewed with the under jaw of a good-sized shoat. Then, if 
you happen to be the owner of more or less dogs, throw all the stale 
bread you have into the vessel containing the pot liquor that is always 
left in the pot after serving the greens, and set it out in the back yard. 
It is not necessary to call the dogs. 

This is the season of the year when you want to hitch up Old 
Beck as of yore and ride down the lane, musical with Nature's song- 
sters, through a blooming crab-apple thicket, to the hundred-acre field 
in the bottoms and hear the happy negro plowmen singing their har- 
monious chants and throw stones at the thieving crows. This is the 
season of the year when large quantities of rich and fragrant sassafras 
tea IS served at meal time, and decoctions of sulphur and molasses 
given to the children. When the burning of bush piles and log 
heaps in the new ground give to the days a haziness like unto that of 
Indian summer. Spring comes as a relief to the small boy; he de- 
lights to see and chase the golden butterfly; he delights to hie away 
to the willows beside the brook where its waters loiter in a deep pool. 
It is the time to turn out barefoot, and fondly does memory cling to 
those happy days. It was then we made footprints, not only in the 



Page Thirty- Fou7 



Pins and Botllts 



sands of time, but in the soft mud ihat lay between home and the 
swimming hole. 

In the valleys and mountains of East Tennessee nature, with un- 
erring judgment, anticipated the needs of man, and made provision for 
him to fulfill his desires through ihe use of a diversity of timbers. 
Spring touches such forests with the vibrant force of life. Spring 
touches all people wilh a thrill of buoyancy, and they walk afield 
cheered by the warbling of birds, the grandeur of mountains, the 
charm of exquisite vales and the music of broken waters. 

It is springtime in Tennessee! Lift up your face in joy and 
behold the beauties of creation! 



Pins and Bottles. 

^^ S A LITTLE BOY I remember hearing my mother read a piece cut 
^* of Gody's Lady's Book about "What Becomes of Pins?" It said 
that three-fourths of our pins come from England, and that it required a 
million a day to pin us up. That article put me to thinking, and 1 have 
been thinking ever since. I don't know how many pins of that million be- 
longed to us, but 1 could never find a pin on the place. Pa went to town 
about once a month to gel a few family necessities and ma always tied a red 
string in the lapel of his coat which meant "don't forget to get a piper of 
pins." 1 have seen my sister stand in front of a mirror and undress, and 
after fhe got through spit out about forty pins on the dresser and then bor- 
row a pin from ma in the morning to fasten the ruching around her neck. 
There is something about pins and their power to hide that I cannot under- 
stand. The mystery is with us yet — "What Becomes of Pins ?" 

There is yet another phase of political economy that is becoming just 
as mysterious, and that is "where do the bottles come from ?" A few years 
ago a vulgar weed with a yellow blossom, somewhat like dog fennel in 
habitat, flourished in our midst for a season, but we readily traced its origin 
to Texas and the Mexican border, but this bottle shower stumps us. They 
seem to prefer and flourish better at the entrance of obscure allys, but the 
little empty and labelless pint and half-pint receptacles may be seen every- 
where. "Sarah, go out and see if the morning paper has come, and Sarah, 
don't forget to throw alt the bottles out of the yard," is becoming a regular 
morning injunction. Why are landlords putting empty barrels in the stair- 
way halls of rooming houses bearing signs reading "please throw your empty 
bottles in here." I have examined hundreds of specimens but have failed 
to yet find one properly labeled for kind, quality or dealer's name, but they 
all seemed to contciin about three to five drops of a fluid whose aroma was 
quite familiar to us, but that is not the question, "Where do all the Bottles 
Come From ?" 



Page Thirty-Fi've 



Corn Bread 



Corn Bread. 

MHEN CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS discovered the Americao 
continent the crowning glory of the event was the subsequent find- 
ing of tobacco, potatoes, the turkey and maize, or Indian corn, and by far 
the greater of these in providing sustenance and giving pleasure to the human 
family has proved to be Indian corn. 

To conserve the supply of wheat for the use of the soldier boys 
and their compatriots in Europe, the government of the United States 
is distributing literature on the merit, mode of preparation and food 
value of corn. 

To the people of the southern slates Indian corn has ever ap- 
pealed, as the material from which to make the bread "what am," 
and especially is this true if it be made of meal ground from the 
most flinty ears that'grew where the ground was not too rich, but en- 
joyed the sunny slope of a hill that faced toward the east. 

The love of the average southerner for cornbread is well known, 
and Ex-Gov. Bob Taylor once truly said that just so long as the peo- 
ple of the north used cold lightbread and the people of the south 
preferred hot cornbread, there would be a Mason and Dixon line. An 
old lady of the south feeding a hungry Yankee soldier and fishing for 
a compliment asked him hew he liked her cornbread when he replied 
that he was hungry enough to eat cornbread, but that he never had 
been hungry enough to like it — that corn was a fine thing to feed to 
hogs, and also made an excellent liquor. 

In the fall of the year when the corn crop was gathered — "when 
the frost was on the pumpkin and the fodder in the shock" — it was 
a festive season in the early days of our history, affording opportu- 
nity for frolics, corn shucking parlies and barn dances, as most of 
the corn was shucked and shelled by hand at night and on rainy days. 

One of ihe most delightful experiences in the life of a country 
boy IS when his father first permits him to perch himself upon a sack 
of shelled corn which had previously been adjusted to the back of an 
old gentle mare, and without chaperonage go dcwn the valley to the 
old grist mill by the river side. Nothing seemed sweeter to him than 
the lullaby of the crystal waters reflecting the prismatic beauties of 
the rainbow as they steadily flowed over the creaking and revolving 
waleiwheel turning the burrs of flinty stone that ground his grist of 
corn into meal. That no kinder eyes ever looked at one than those 
of the old miller, glancing over the rims of his dust-covered spectacles, 
nor greater honesty displayed than when he dished out his half-peck 
toll from the sack as his charge for grinding. There is no meal 
that compares with the old-fashioned, waterground meal, where each 
particular grist receives the individual attention of the miller, who 
sees that it is ground neither too coarse nor too fine. 

When the meal was brought home sweet and fresh from the 
mill it was shaken through a sifter to free it from bran, put into a 
buckeye dough tray, mixed with sour buttermilk to which a pinch of 
keg soda had been added, and the dough shortened with pure, fresh 



Pngc Thirty-Six 



Corn Bread 



and sweet hog lard. At this point it was interesting to stand near 
and see the women folks take up a large ball of the corn dough and 
toss it back and forth in their hands until it assumed an oblong 
shape, put it into a hot baker and pat it down with iheir fingers, leav- 
ing prints of the same to be later served up with the finished product. 
There were three pones assigned to ihc three-legged baker which was 
placed before the open fireplace and a shovelful of live hickory coals 
was placed thereunder, and the baker lid was also heated as it rested 
above and upon the forestick of the fire; then you take the iron hooks, 
always hanging in a handy place, and put the lid on the oven and 
cover it with the livest coals of the fire to cause the bread to brown 
nicely on top. An occasional peep was made by the cook to inspect 
the process of the baking. For supper you could not want anything 
better than to split a hot corn dodger lengthwise with a bone-handled 
case knife and butter it with fresh golden butter right out of the 
big stone crock that stood belly deep in the crystal waters that flowed- 
through the old log spring house that stood in the shade of a weeping 
willow. Such cornbread, when accompanied by a chaser of sweet 
milk, makes a supper fit for the earth's elect. While hot pone corn- 
bread has its peculiar merit, both the crust and crumb of cold corn- 
bread is not to be dispised when pulverized into a bowl of fresh cold 
sweet milk and shoveled home with a good-sized iron spoon. 

There is but one improvement on the ordinary corn dodger. 
When the tassels -of the cornstalk begins to turn yellow and the silk 
on the end of the ear a mahogany brown, gather a lot of the green 
corn, or roasting ears, and grate them down to the cob on a tin grater. 
The milk from the unripe grain furnishes sufficient moisture that no 
further ingredient except a little salt is necessary to form the pulp into 
cakes and roast them on hot coals or bake them on planks exposed 
to the fire. These are called ash, or Johnnie cakes, and are simply 
fine. 

But good as corn dodgers, eggbread and ash cakes are. it is 
not well to overlook their first cousin, cornmush. To brew a pot of 
cornmush you should wash the deep two-gallon iron pot until it shines, 
inside like a well-groomed locomotive, then pour into it about two 
big gourdsful of clear spring water dipped up after all the muddy 
water caused by a frightened bullfrog scampering to his hole had 
cleared away. Then hang the pot on the rack in the fireplace, punch 
up the coals, and when the water begins to boil lake the white oak 
mush paddle that every well-regulated family ought to have, and 
slowly pour in the cornmeal, continually stirring the pot to beat the 
band. If you neglect to do this the mush will contain lumps, and it 
is not pleasant to bite into a lump of hot mush that was full of dry 
cornmeal. In the meantime watch out for explosives — for if you 
confine a goodly bunch cf air in a kettle of hot mush you arc likely 
from time to time to ret pelted in the face with hot dough. When a 
pot of mush is well coolcrd yoM may take a helping and a crock of 
good cold sweet miik and make a meal on it In brewing a pot of 
mush for supper it i.- h--sl always to make a little more than necessary, 
so that some of it could be left over to get cold and be cut into slices 
and friend in the skillet with ham gravy for breakfast in the morning. 



Page Thirty-Se'ven 



Going Fishing 



Going Fishing, 

•ff N THE BACK YARD where Sally threw the dish water all winter. 
■' the grub worms are just tearing up the earth. The lilac bush is full 
of blossoms and the dogwood trees make the hillside look like the back of a 
speckcled pup. The perfume of the wild honeysuckle mm^les with the 
smoke from a hundred brush piles. The plow boy sings as the teeth of his 
harrow tug at the clods of a newly plowed sage field. Tom and and Jane 
are out of school this we-^k dropping corn for pa and help ng ma plant the 
garden s^ed. The old blue hen has be?n setang on a door knob in the 
corner of the smoke house fo- a week aid the little birds are miking such 
a racket you can't hear yourself think. Don't want to work and 
don't want to play — just feel like sneaking off somewhere and resting; 
yet you cannot truthfully say that you are tired. It must be the call 
of the wild. This is the season of the year when a fellcw naturally 
hankers after a close touch with nature — a desire to go out somewhere 
and find a clump of alder bushes and m their seclusion lie down on 
one's back and look up at ihe soft, clear blue sky and ihink— think 
of nothing but funny things and laugh all to yourself. Then, loo, it 
is soothing to sneak off to a neighboring creek and sit in a rifl of 
the willows which line its banks and fish. Suppose you 'do have the 
proverbial fisherman's luck — it is not necessary to calch any fish; 
sitting sequestered on the velvety bank of the creek and dreaming and 
listening to ihe rippling music of the broken waters of a babbling 
brcok — ihat's fishmp. There is a harmless, preoccupied look about 
the averape lone fisherman — the birds do not fear him, and a rabbit 
will size him up from a safe distance. Then, too, there is recom- 
pense for the ordnarv fisherman's luck when a little red-eyed perch 
about the size and shape of a pumpkin seed seizes your hook with 
herculean vigor and sets (he long watched cork a-bobbing; then with 
mirhly jerk you land him among the limbs of a tree above your head 
only to find that your hook and line have bceome hopelessly caught 
and enlenrlcd. An old black crawfish with ponderous pinchers, can 
cause more trouble than any other inhabitant of the creek. He will 
find your hook plentifully loaded with nice, fat worms and grab the 
bunch Wilh both claws and set your cork dancing a jig, and when 
you pull him out he hangs on to -those worms until you land him on 
the bank, then he scampers off backward toward the creek laughing at 
you all the time. If the perch, the silversides, the homey-heads and 
the red-eyes seem to be absent at the first place at which you start to 
fish there is always a better place down the creek a piece, so you pick 
up your pole and can of bate and meander down to the old sucker 
hole where you know that long, slim white suckers are wallowing in 
the sand and gravel lo find wilh disgust on your arrival a bunch of 
schoolboys lined up on the bank belting a watermelon against ten 
cents worth of store tobacco on who could dive the furtherest. An- 
other good place is to sit hidden in the volume of sound of an old mill 
dam and angle for the big game fellows that perpetually examine the 



Pai^e Thirty-Eight 



The Cup That Cheers 



flotsam and jetsam of the dam's overflow. But let us go on down 
the soliloquizing stream where it is more quiet, and as we pass along 
what a thrill of surprise the sudden "skcel" of a young bullfrog gives 
us as he fakes a nine-foot crescent leap from his grassy retreat beside 
the path into the limpid depths of the brook. Then those gathered 
mussell shells from each of whcih you hope to find a beautiful pearl, 
and the dear little pinnewinkles which peep up from among the whfte 
pebbles of the shallows and which have survived the ravages of a 
flock ol quacking ducks, and the funny antics of the old crawfish as he 
skids backwards through the pebbles lo a watercress bank. Then 
the shiny old water moccasin drops off a stranded fence rail where 
he has been enjoying a sun bath and glides into the creek before you 
have time to fulfill a divine injunction and bruise the serpent's head. 
To us fishing has always seemed like A was or ought to be a solo 
occupation. A great many think that a bottle of dram is a necessary 
accompaniment; we even doubt thai, but, be these ^ings as they may, 
we want to go fishing RIGHT NOW! 



The Cup That Cheers. 

'TT'HE POET HORACE has sung of the wine of his native Sabine 
^■^ hills ; Omar, the Persian, has reducrd the philosophy of life to book 
of verse, a loot of bre d, a jug of wine and thou ; Burns has immortalized 
ihe "barley brea" of his native heath ; the German yodles the praise of a 
foaming stein ; encircling the globe rum remains the grog of the swarthy sons 
of the tornd zone. In fact, the human system seems to demand in some 
form a tup thit cheers. The petiple of East Tennessee being intensely bu- 
rn =>n, and find'ng Indian corn, peaches and apples indigenous to this section, 
find V pleasant on occasion to relieve the strain of existence with palatable 
"dopes'" of their own making, respectively and locally known as white com 
liquor, peach and apple brandy. In the du iful discharge of the industrial 
requiiements of youth, it has been our pleasure to acquire a rudimentary 
knowledge of the various processes used in the distillation of these homely 
yet delectable spinis. Back in the hill country, glorious to us in its hallowed 
recollections, tender with the reminiscences of association with plain c juntry 
folks, honest, brave and virtuous as ever the effulgent rays of the sun shone 
upon, here and there along limpid streams or beside a dashing mountain 
cascade may now be seen mounds green wilti grass and overgrown with 
weeds and briars, that mark the place whfr>- once stood an old-fastuoned 
still house. 1 o the natives these spots hold greater charm and poleiKy to 
stir the imagination to an awakening of vivid traditions of the past than the 
stories woven around the prehis^cic graves ( f the ancient mound builders. 
These ancient stills were erecttd by a race o( hardy pioneers in the valley* 
where freestone water burst from the earth in transcendent purity and cool 
enough to chill the worm of an old copper still. The p>eople who built 
them never though of "moral uplift" when they lighted fires in the furnace 



Page Thirty-Sine 



The Cup That Cheers 



that cooked the contents of the still and sent the vapors sizzling through the 
coiU of the worm to be condensed into a fluid which, when shaken, bore 
beads upon its surface and was an infaUible antidote for the poison of a 
rattler and a dispeller of gloom from the sad heart. Some of these people 
thought that a dram was just as essentia! to a man's welfare as a 
twist of long, green chewing tobacco, and we have heard some of 
them say that they would rather get along on two meals a day than 
to go without their tobacco. At the time of which we write there 
was no market for either apples or peaches, so they were gathered 
by the farmers and taken to the stills, where they were made into 
brandy on the shares. By this means the peach and apple crop 
was sufficiently condensed that it could be jugged and stowed away 
for future reference. In the autumn, when the sheepnose and boss' 
apple trees were bending beneath their load of fruit, they were 
shaken or clubbed off to assist Ike Newton's law of gravitation, and 
then picked up and hauled to the still, where they were ground up 
by means of an old, home-made cider mill, or pounded up with 
a well-seasoned hickory maul in a dug-out trough. This pomace 
was then gathered and placed in barrels or still tubs, covered over 
the top with a layer of clay and allowed to ferment, after which 
it was ready for the copper still. The peach crop is treated in a 
similar manner. To our notion peach brandy carries the flavor and 
perfume of the fruit better than any other thing prepared by the 
process of distillation. If you ever had occasion to uncork a bottle 
or jug of peach brandy, golden with age, and place it close to your 
nostrils, you would not deem it extravagant praise to compare its per- 
fume to that of a basket of ripe Elberta peaches. Apple brandy 
has some perfume, but it is of the brandy, and not the fruit. 

An old friend of ours took a flat, half-pint bottle of apple 
brandy with him to the inauguration of William McKmley. This 
brandy was made in Warren county, Tennessee, many, many years 
ago. It had an exquisite flavor and a delightful odor. It was 
the concentrated essence of sweet, mellow and juicy hand-picked 
horse apples. The March wind bore upon its breach the icy chill 
of northern frost that made one shiver with cold, but the resources 
of our old friend from the mountains was equal to the emergency. 
He was not like the foolish virgins who went to meet the bride- 
groom without any oil in their lamps. But the puzzle was how to 
lake a drink within twenty feet of where McKinley was speaking, 
without exciting the envy of those who stood near him. But he 
was equal to the occasion Concealing the flask in a silk skull cap, 
as though he was trying to shield his face from the cold, he thus 
enjoyed the personal liberty of a free-born American citizen. But, 
alas, he had forgotten about the aromatic excellence of his bever- 
age — in two minutes he was ihe cynosure of a thousand eyes, yet 
envied by half as many people. It is said that, at one time, there 
were more than fifty brandy stills in operation in Warren county, 
Tennessee, the largest of which was that owned by Lawson Hill, 
who had 1,000 acres of apple trees in cultivation, but today apple 
brandy is largely a thing of the past. There was another bever- 
age in those good old days cousin germain to apple brandy, known 



A;v 



.i:y 



Hog Killin' Time 



as cider oil. Cider oil was made of ihe finest kind of sweet apple 
eider, boiled and skimmed to render it free from all impurities, 
and then lo each barrel was added about Iwo gallons of fragrant 
apple brandy to give if vim and zest. These barrels were then 
rolled away into a cool cellar, lo be used only on festive occasions. 
It was necessary to make brandies during the season in which the 
fruit ripened, but not "so wilh popular, old-fashioned while corn 
whisky, clear as sprmg water. It was manufactured m and out of 
season. The first run of the still on white corn whisky was known 
as grain alcohol, and made good stuff in which to dissolve gum 
camphor. The big camphor bollle was a conspicuous object on 
the mantel piece of the old home. With camphor, boneset tea. blue 
mass pills and the exhiliraling effect of pure corn whisky, the pioneer 
was kept in such fine physical condilion that he could readily de- 
vour three square meals a day and leave to posterity the task of 
worrying about race suicide. In those days whisky was pure and 
a common article of barter and trade. When too much of the 
rare old apple brandy was indulged in, it generally gave to its 
devotee a nose that resembled the succulent tomato or apple that 
ripens in June. As good barrels were very scarce and hard to get 
in those days, most of ihe whisky and brandies were stored away 
in jugs, wilh corncob stoppers, while ihe bottles were slopped wilh 
a dried apple. 

In those good old days, if a person wanted a delicious drink, 
he made a toddy of peach brandy and sweetened it with honey; 
if he wanted a mint julep he went lo ihe branch and gathered a 
handful of fragrant miinl and, bruising it in a tall glass with a pine 
stick, added apple brandy and spring water to taste. An eggnog 
was soon concocted by breaking a newly laid egg into a teacup, 
adding thereto a gill of corn liquor and hot water to suit the taste. 
Thus our ancestors lived, and it's no wonder they are all dead, 
though many of them persisted jn living 'way past ninety. 



Hog Killin' Time. 

Till ^^^ ^^^ GOVERNOR of a rich and productive state deems 
^"^■^ it expedient lo call together its sovereign people for consideration 
of the merits and better welfare of the Hog, it would appear this humble 
and familiar dome«tic animal was coming into its own. 

The cold, crisp weather of the past few days has brought to remem- 
brance the busy but greasy days of "hog killin' time," when this popular 
quadruped formed the basis for the sustenance of a hardy racfe of pionens. 

But little attention was paid to the hog crop during thf summer months 
rather than the injunction to "root hog or die" until a o-ns begin ti drop, 
when the hogs were herded to the wOods to fiill up on the ma-t that fc-ll so 
bountifully from the trees, and while it cost the farmer nothing and is veiy 



Page Forty-One 



Hog Killin' Time 



fattening to the hogs, mast fat is of an oily nature, and so planteri 
who understood iheir business would select from the drove such hogi 
as were intended to supply the demand for the winter's meat, pen 
them up near a stream of pure running water and feed them lib- 
erally on corn for about two weeks previous to the lime for killing 
in order to harden and whiten the fat. 

Cold weather is a necessity for a successful hog killing bee, 
and like log-rolling and barn-raising, a few experienced friends 
come in handy. Seldom did these nature-loving pioneers prognosti- 
cate a cold snap and fail to gel it, or enjoy the advice and help of 
more neighbors than was necessary. No member of the family, from 
grandma to visiting niece, were excused from lending a helping hand 
during hog killing time^ — even the children wanted to slay from 
school, but were brought off with a promise to save all the bladders 
fci them lo blow up with a quill. 

Locating the place of slaughter near some bold spring or stream 
of waicr, one of the first requirements was dry wood from the hills 
with which to build a roaring fire in which to heat the round river 
rocks, old plow shares or iron castings which were thrown red hoi 
from lime to time in the large still tub which stood at an angle of 
45 degrees near the fire and contained the steaming water in which 
the hogs were scaled in order to remove the hair and bristle. 

In most rural communities (here is an acknowledged crack shot 
w'ho, with leather pouch of bullets, tow, caps, powder horn, powder 
measure, piece of hickory shirting for bullet patching and long- 
barreled squiirrel rifle, was on hand lo display his skill in felling an 
indicated fwrker. Almost immediately after a hog was unerringly 
and fatally shot through the brain it was stuck beneath the throat 
with a large, keen butcher knife in order lo give free flow lo all th« 
blood from the body. 

Before cutlery came into such general use there were hand- 
forged butcher knives in rural sections that were blessed with a 
histoi'y, and it was a pretentious family that could not recognize "big 
butch," "little butch," "cob handle" or "case," even if they were 
seen in the hands of a stranger. Case knives were used to scrape off 
the hair and bristles of (he scalded hog; "little butch" was used for 
trimming and cutting behind the hind feet to expose the tendons so 
that a gammon slick might be inserted lo swing up the hog; "big 
butch" was used for removing the insides of the hog and "cob handle" 
lo rid the fat from the entrails. 

After the hog had been scalded and carefull- scraped and clean 
and while, it was swung up perpendicularly from a horizonlal pole 
and several buckets of clear water dashed over it, and then the 
cpcrator, with a large knife, got busy removing the insides. The 
Intestines were allowed to fall into large tubs, bul the heart, liver 
and lights were removed by hand and hung up to some convenient 
limb, where the ca1s could not reach them. The "melt" was then 
examined as a forecaster of the mildness or severity of the weather 
for the remainder of the year. 



Pa}^e Forty-Tnjuo 



Hog Klilin' Time 



After all the insides had been removed from the hog, it was 
thoroughly washed out with clear water to remove all traces of 
blood. This process was conl'.nued until the required number of 
hogs had been slaughtered. 

They were then taken down one at a time, properly cut up, 
salted and placed in the smokehouse. In cutting up hogs the ribs, 
backbone and head were called "off-falls" and were prepared, cooked 
and eaten first. Heads and livers cooked up and concocted mto 
"souse" or "head cheese." Sausage was made from the choicest and 
fenderest portions and carefully seasoned wilh black or red pepper 
and garden sage and stored away in crocks or well-cured shucks 
from a perfect ear of corn. 

Necessarily things were greasy at hog killing lime. The leaf 
lard was rendered out and siramed through flax clolh to remove 
the cracklings and stored away in slone jars, while ihe cracklings 
were used to shorten cornbread. The entrails were carefully 
washed, cleaned and hung up to dry in the top of ihe smokehouse, 
'to be used later for soup grease After the jowls, shoulders, mid- 
dlings and hams had lain in salt for a sufficient length of time ihey 
were hung up in the smokehouse to dry and cure. They were 
sometimes smoked to give them a rich brown color. Jowls are 
used to season turnips and other varieties of greens. Shoulders are 
friend and eaten in the spring before ihcy become strong. Middlings 
are cooked wilh tender snap beans, also lend a flavor lo boiled 
cabbage or may be devoured when fried in long ihin slices. Ham 
can be boiled, but it is not altogether bad fried, especially when 
garnished wilh fresh eggs swimm.ng in ijs own mahogany gravy. 

But coming back to hog killing time — try this recipe— take a lib- 
eral portion of spareribs and back bone; let ihcm lay in salt water 
for a day or two; wash them off wilh clean water; parboil them 
just a few m'inules; now place them in a big black pot filled with 
water and boil them until they are so tender they almost fall to 
pieces. Now lake them out and brown them in a hot skillet and 
serve with fresh butter just up from the springhouse, well shortened 
biscuit hot off the stove, and coffee on the side that bubbles as it is 
poured. Fine on a cold morning. P. S. — Don't forget the marrow 
in the backbones. 

Popular etiquette demands that all neighbor helpers leave their 
dogs at home, for nothing could bo a greater nuisance than a bevy 
of mixed curs at a hog killing frolic. 

There was a lime in the early history of Tennessee when bears, 
getting a sniff of spilled blood, would come down from the ridges 
and out of ihe coves to boldly investigate iheir opportunity for a 
share in the spoil. 

It is a question whether the eating of hog meal is conducive 
to civ<iHzfttion or not, but as far back as the days of Shakespeare, 
in the Merchant of Venice, he makes Shylock remark that "this 
making of Christians will raise the price of hogs." Judging from 
the premise laid down by Shakespeare -and pork retailing at the 
hlitkerlo unheard, of price of 23 cents a pound, Christianity would 
teem to be holding its own in Tennessee. 



Page Forty- Three 



Did Time Religion 



mc 



Old Time Religion. 

|E ARE LIVING in an age of transition, perhaps as old as the 
patriarchs, and maybe new as this morning's sun. Time changes 
customs and fashions— also it takes a whack at creeds; in fact, nothing is 
exempt from its insidious pace. Some of time's changes attract practically 
no attention, while others are conspicuous. A marked change in social 
custom from half a century ago is the abandonment of the practice of cry- 
ing at funerals and shouting at church revivals. Only a few years ago love 
and affection made itself manifest at funerals in tsars and audible grief. To- 
day it seems that people do not care if all their poor relation are dead, for 
in dry-eyed silence and becoming dignity they perform the last sad rights 
prescribed by duty. 

This is an age when patrician pnde slalks in ihe wake of ma- 
terial progress, and the Pharisee seems to have come into his own, for 
figuratively speaking, it looks as if he had the meek and humble 
Publican by the nape of the neck and the seat of his trousers, with 
the advantage of a down hill shove. In the neighborhood where we 
were reared the people did not understand the significance of the 
story of the good Samaritan — they were all Samaritans. At old- 
time revivals where our fathers and mothers look us children there 
was shouting and there were songs of praise; there was a fellow- 
ship and an exemplification of the gealest commandment. There was 
also the anxious seat, or mourner's bench, where some fellows who 
thought they were bad would have to sit sometimes for a week before 
they could get religion. Under the new order of things all that is 
necessary for bad fellows to do is to hold up his hand if he wants 
to go to heaven, or shake hands with the preacher at the conclusion 
of the service. At the old-time revival the preacher was one of 
those plain, elder-brother kind of men, and his advice and friendly 
counsel was sought upon both temporal and spiritual matters. He 
exhorted sinners to repentance and warned people to walk in the 
fear and admonition of the Lord; he also taught that the greatest 
riches and blessing of this life was to lead a pure and helpful life. 
He was plain in his manner and dress, and rarely, if ever, wore a 
long-tailed coat or a stove-pipe hat, and if he wore a collar it was 
sewed on his shirt and buttoned 'in front. His knowledge of theoret- 
ical thelogy, grammar and rhetoric as laid down in the book was 
as short as his hoe handle or as limited as the blade of the mowing 
scyihe which he wielded in the fields and meadows during week 
days. He received no pay to amount to anything for his preaching, 
his hearers, as a rule, being well grounded in the faith that salvation 
IS free. It is not our purpose to enter into an argument against the 
liberal support of the ministry, for we- do not believe in "muzzling 
the ox that treadeth out the corn." With hard licks the old-time 



Page Forty -Four 



Old Time Religion 



preacher coaxed vital sustenance from the soil. The brown furrow 
which his plow share turned yielded its fruitage at harvest. By prac- 
tical experience in sowing grain he fully understood the great parables 
of the Sower and the grain of mustard seed as related by the humble 
carpenter of Galilee. The green fields were as instructive to him 
. ". as McCauley's pose, and the wild flowers which bloomed in artless 
profusion as inspiring as Milton's poetry. The chorus of birds which 
floated out upon the air in a thousand dulcet harmonies from tree 
tops was as sweet to him as a melody of the lute or harp. The 
willows that grew along the bank of the brook in his meadow and 
dipped their bending tips into its crystal waters suggested a time 
when he would hang his harp of gold on willows like unto these and 
listen to the gentle lullaby of transcendent waters whose source is the 
throne of the living God. 

He gleaned his sermons from the teachings of the blessed book, 
' and embellished them with quaint and homely illustrations culled from 

■■'■ the forest and field. 'He knew nothing of theology and higher criti- 
cism, and he spent no time in tracing biblical terms back to their 
Grecian or Hebraic origin, but in his plain and simple way preached 
Christ and Him crucified. When he petitioned the throne of Grace 
in prayer it was upon humble and bended knee. He reached out a 

■•• ■ helping hand to the distressed; had words of comfort for those who 

■. mourned and fatherly advice in all of its loving tenderness for the 

orphan and the waif. He visited the sick, and spoke words of 

consolation to the dying. He pointed out to his flock the road to 

heaven and himself led the way. 

From the sacred desk he hurled his exhortations against pride and 
vanity, those subtle influences that are today clutching at the very 
vitals of the modern church and seem to be sweeping away the old- 
fashioned religion of our fathers. 

Now, if this was the preacher and the method of the days of our 
youth, are we keeping the faith? Is the church of today perpetuating 
and keeping inviolate its ancient principles? How often do we hear 
it said that this or that organziation is an agency for good because it 
reaches a class of people ibal the church cannot reach. This in itself 
is a sad indictment of the church, for no class of humanity, however 
poor and humble, ought to be placed beyond the reach of the church, 
and it should at no lime confess its weakness or inability to reach all 
classes. If it does not, and cannot, as Shakespeare has truly said: 
"There is something rotten in Denmark." With love for all, with 
charity for all, and in a spirit of meekness and humility, let the 
church persue its conquest for good. Let not pride and vanity sweep 
, the old ship of Zion from her moorings. We plead for the church 
free from pride, where the poorest and most humb(e would feel that 
they were welcome to "drink of the waters of life freely.' Where 
the poor and distressed, the weary, the heart-hungry man and woman, 
those who are sick of sin, may be invited to come, sit in its pews 
and hear the great promises, feel the pressure of a friendly grasp 
and the encouragement of a kindly glance rather than be directed "to 
the little mission just around the corner. " We would not stay the 



/VziTf Forty-Fi'vc 



Time Reliijiou 



march cf progress and civilization if we could, and we register our 
approval of all modern changes which work for good and the up- 
lift of the race, yet in our zeal for higher attainments we would not 
sweep away the ancient landmarks of our mother's church or the 
hatkwcd teachings of the old-fashioned religion which pointed out 
ihe path of duty so plain "thai a way-faring man, though a fool, need 
not err therein." Where without pride and vanity they worshipped, 
ccmmuned and sang songs of praise, and when the sKcwers .of re- 
freshing came, and in the purity of their lives and in the gladness of 
their hearts they shouted no one thought of taking out an injunction 
against the custom. 



Bathing. 

©N ACCOUNT of its youthful association the old swimming hole with 
limestone bluff and sandy bottom, shaded by white-limbed sycamores 
and fringed with moss and wild flowers, will always have a tender memory 
for those of us who, frog- like have plunged into its crystal depths, for it was 
there, stripped of outward mark of cast and in democratic simplicity sported 
in this sanitary and healthful pastime. Bathing is of ancient origin. Dating 
from the time that Noah watched a nation sporting nymph-like in the mighty 
waters of a deluge to the time that in their pride the Caesars constructed 
public baths to the wonder of the world and England honored nobility by 
conferring upon it the Order of the Bath, bathing has been popular. 

Beside th"* famous Turkish and Russian there are many and various 
ways of taking a bath. We learn from historic research that Nero's wife 
balhed daily in the milk of goals, and also that ancieent Greeks greased 
themselves with oil then lay out in the sun to bake it in. This was 
known as the sun bath. It is no wonder that a race like that thun- 
dered through the expanding centuries by means of the eloquent voice 
of Demosthenes; that her blind and hungry poet. Homer, could sing the 
sweet and immortal Iliad, and her sons glorify Salamis and Ther- 
mopylae by deeds of heroism, for they were a hardy and prac- 
tical people. 

When the Roman empire run out of somebody to fight, its 
legions returned to Rome to enjoy the fruits of the latest holdup, 
and being born and bred soldiers, they soon degenerated into a 
mob so rotten that the emperor had to sick the police on them 
and compel them to baihe in the public baths which were mag- 
nificent and an ornament to the eternal city. 

About one of the first experiences of the newly-arrived genus 
homo is (he ordeal of the bath, and in well-regulated families this 
daily bathing business is kept up until one is old and strong 
enough lo fight for his rights and compromise on the old-style, 
week-end affair, which can soon be exchanged for the swimming 
hole or other independent and congenial means. 



Page Forty-Six 



There has been mUch discussion on llie subject of balhing. 
Some contend that a person ought to baihe frequently; others that 
claimed that back in the mountains where people dw.?ll in cabins, 
twice a year is ample, and !o bathe oftener entails a risk to health 
and a waste of soap. In vigorous support of this argument it is 
claimed thai back in the mountains wheie people dwell in log cabins, 
drink moonshine whisky and shun water, both inside and out, 
they live to be a hundred years of age or more, and are absolutely 
chigger-proof. 

In youth we have been led up to the big black wash kettle 
that stood near the creek, had our garment removed — a long- 
tailed shirt — scrubbed down with hot soap suds by one colored 
washlady while another dashed over us buckets of water dipped 
from a stream which flowed from a block of ice in the middle 
of the Cumberland mountain lo nnse us off. 

In later years it has been our pleasure lo bathe in porce- 
lain-lined tubs, With soap, perfumed with the scent of flowers; 
then we have breasted the waves of the ocean as ihey surged about 
us or raced over the crystal sands of the beach; we have also 
perspired copiously in 'the loirendum of a Turkish bath, but 
memory calls up a bathing period of life that can never be re- 
placed by the luxuries of modern civilization. 

The scene lies at the old home. It is Saturday evening. On 
the iron step-stove in the kitchen rests a washboiler that is busy 
heating six buckets of clear water. Resting on the back of turn- 
down split-bottom chairs sils a tub— fashioned from slaves riven 
from the but-cut of a mighty white oak and bound - together with 
hoops that were split, shaved and fashiened from a lough while 
oak that grew in its pride and luxuriance in the depths of a lone- 
some hollcw where whipporwills often repaired lo take a music 
lesson. On a long table in one corner of the kitchen is carefully 
fully placed five separate and distinct piles of clean clothing. 
Looking from the kitchen into an adjoining room could be seen 
a roaring fire, for it was cold without. In this room also were 
five lambs destined to be led lo the slaughter. A voice from 
the kitchen: "Come along Billy, I am ready for you!" Response 
from the herd: "I don't want 16 yel ; it's Sally's turn." Then 
interference by head of the family and some hurried undressing. 
Thus one by one in turn do the purified and undefiled again re- 
turn romping to the blazing open fire shining in neat garments 
and bright faces. The water in the tub is then aupmented by a 
fresh supply, when the adult members of the family lake turns, 
often widing up the evening's pleasure by scrubbir^y the dog. Some- 
times when the weather was very cold the pcw-.-rs that be might 
be prevailed upon lo skip a week, but thai was not often. 

'Early in life we were taught that cleanliness was next to god- 
liness, and that washing off all over occasionally was beneRcial. 
"All over," like charity, covered a multitude of places of whii S, 
as a lawyer would say, the reader will take judicial cognizance. 

Bathing in the open, such as in creeks, lakes and nvers, has 
to a great extent been the special privilege of the male, but w; 



Page Forty-Seven 



LltiKHKY Uh (;UNbKbt>b 



Bathing 




015 930 442 5 



have read somewhere that Pharoah's daughter once went to take 
a plunge in the river Nile, and while floundering about amongst 
a school of crocodiles discovered a little boy named Moses in 
an ark of bullrushes, whereupon she proceeded to raise him up like 
a prince and a gentleman, but in later years he showed his in- 
gratitude by stealing all the jewelry and giving her daddy's army 
a good ducking in the Red sea. 

We can testify from personal experience that a combination 
composed of hot water, lye soap, vegetable dishrag and an oaken 
washtub will, like that faith which could remove mountains, did 
remove dirt, if there was any, and there generally was. 



Playing Marbles in the Lane. 

The past brings up a picture rare. 
Of childish faces free from cate — 
When we played marbles in the lane 
With Pete and John and Mary Jane. 

We laughed with gusto in our glee 
As in happy mood we frolicked free 
When we played marbles in the lane 
With Pete and John and Mary Jane. 

Our heads were shocks of uncombed hair. 
Our chubby feet both bronzed and bare 
When we played marbles in the lane 
With Pete and John and Mary Jane. 

Each warned the other "don't ever fudge," 
And from that rule we 'd never budge 
When we played marbles in the lane 
With Pete and John and Mary Jane. 

A line on sand was scratched as taw 
And "toe that mark" was unwrit law 
When we played marbles in the lane 
With Pete and John and Mary Jane. 

Screams of delight about the circle ran 
When lucky shot plugged middle man 
When we played marbles in the lane 
With Pete and John and Mary Jane. 

Old Time and Tide has changed our lot. 
Yet memory clings to that very spot 
Where we played marbles in the lane 
With Pete and John and Mary Jane. 

Now we bless the seasons as they roll 
And such simple things as thrilled the soul 
Like playing marbles in the lane 
With Pete and John and Mary Jane. 



Pa^e Forty-Eight 



mi^^^R 




Hollinger Corp. 
pH8.5 



